In the 20th anniversary edition of The St. Louis Black Pages, which was released last week at a public event at the YWCA Phyllis Wheatley Heritage Center, co-publisher Howard Denson writes passionately about “transformation” of the community he loves and that he has done so much to promote, along with his wife and co-publisher Vicki Denson.
In his lead article “BE the Transformation,” Howard Denson writes that “the TRANSFORMATION begins when YOU simply decide what you care about the most, and then either find or create an ongoing voluntary service opportunity to address that issue” – with the emphatic use of capital letters showing how much he is feeling this.
What began as a business directory – a Yellow Pages for black people and businesses – has been transformed into a business directory enfolded in a magazine.
And this isn’t really a business magazine, with minutiae on marketing, financing, investment or human resources issues. More than anything, it’s an Afrocentric self-help magazine complete with a “Blueprint for Change” – and the Densons are not talking about changing the name of your business or your insurance portfolio manager.
Clearly, the Densons are operating out of the old-school model of black business development: self-empowerment as community-building, not as getting rich, getting out and “moving on up.”
Let Howard Denson tell the story.
“For 20 years, the St. Louis Black Pages has dedicated itself to exploring the challenges that face the African-American community,” he writes in the 20th anniversary edition.
“We have searched meticulously for the root causes of our condition, driven purely by a dream of uncovering the all-elusive ‘why.’ Why do we African-Americans do the wacky, self-destructive things that we do?”
Clearly, finding an answer to this question will be considerably more difficult than finding an African-American lawyer, doctor, insurance agent or realtor – the sorts of reasons community members most often pick up their copy of the Black Pages.
The Densons now print 100,000 copies of their business guide (in full color from cover to cover, on premium newsprint) because it is such a uniquely valuable resource for consumers who choose to “buy black” when possible – or, at least, try to make themselves aware of African-American options when weighing how to spend their consumer or business-to-business dollar.
However, for those reflective souls also troubled by those deep “why?” questions that animate the Densons, the magazine surrounding the business directory offers some answers.
“Ultimately, we have concluded that it is because slave culture (a way of life which was then necessary for survival) was never fully examined and dismantled after the end of slavery,” Howard Denson writes.
“Because we never examined and dissected the undeniable horror of slavery, we never healed from it. And consequently, we never dismantled those slave-patterned behaviors which have resulted in the deeply-rooted social, economic and psychological challenges that are destroying us today.”
Again, this is the old-school, Afrocentric, black nationalist philosophy that has guided so much productive African-American business development. And the Densons will certainly help you to “buy black” – and buy back for the community some of its deserved economic resources.
But they also want the community to think deeper than the pocketbook. There is a history lesson here.
“Our biggest challenge is that we don’t recognize that we’re still living under the survival rules crafted during two and a half centuries of slavery and the brutal century of Reconstruction and Jim Crow that followed,” Howard Denson writes.
“Remarkably, in spite of everything, we are finally entering a new era. The time has come when we must ask ourselves, ‘Why are we still living as if we have no hope, no dreams, and no aspirations? Why are we living
like we have no ancestors, no God?’”
When your fingers do their walking in the Black Pages, your mind, heart and soul had better be ready to be challenged. Because this guide is not only marketing black businesses. It’s also ministering to black souls.
The St. Louis Black Pages is available at more than 150 area distribution locations. For bulk copies, call 314-531-7300, fax 314-531-7302 or email info@black-pages.com. The entire publication is available online at WWW.BLACK-PAGES.COM.
