Black Power...White Dollars

Does Corporate Sponsorship Weaken the Voice of Black Leadership?

By: Deric Muhammad

The Honorable Elijah Muhammad used to say that whoever controls your food can control your revolution. There was a time when the enemies of justice saw a movement that represented a potential threat to their power they would do their best to stop it. Nowadays they don’t try and stop it. THEY JUST FINANCE IT.
One of the formulas for maintaining white supremacy has always been to keep the wise and fearless revolutionary from the resources that support a revolution. Nobody understands this better than the American government whose war chest is the biggest chest on the government body. If you keep the wise man poor he has very few outlets to manifest his wisdom and make it into a reality. If you keep the rich man ignorant then he is no threat to the powers that be. This is especially true with Black athletes and entertainers. The day that strong, sincere Black leaders and organizations are blessed with the collective support of Black wealth it will be a marriage that divorces us from our dependency on the white dollar.
Recently one of our great civil rights stalwarts, Reverend Al Sharpton, made a deal with the federal government that cooled the flames of an ongoing criminal investigation into his personal financial affairs and that of The National Action Network (NAN) that he commandeers out of New York City. He and the NAN were a couple of million behind in taxes, but were also accused of everything from destroying financial records to exchanging big dollars for civil rights “ghetto passes”.
The investigation disclosed some of Sharpton’s corporate sponsors who contribute hundreds of thousands to NAN’s coffers annually. Some included Anheuser-Busch, Wal-mart, Continental Airlines and a host of others. As a matter of fact, according to the New York Post nearly 50 companies and labor unions sponsored the NAN’s annual conference in April. The feds described Al as a paid consultant who assists some of these companies in settling race-related legal disputes with Black employees and customers. Rev. Al called the feds snoop a retaliatory witch hunt. This is probably true. The FBI has a well-recorded history of infiltrating Black organizations seeking to destabilize them.
Last year the NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in America, reportedly had to dip into millions of its financial reserves and close all of its regional offices due to budgetary shortfalls. Many do not know that the NAACP was co-founded by whites in 1909. This being the case it is not surprising that they receive moneys from corporate entities and huge donations from white people who support the cause.
Question: Does white corporate sponsorship weaken the strength of the voice of those who claim to lead us? Can you believe in “Black Power” when it’s brought to you by Chrysler Corporation”? Does corporate sponsorship represent a payoff and a promise that that company never has to worry about a picket line or protest outside its headquarters? Is the civil rights movement buried in the budget of some of these Fortune 500 Companies?
Now, I have to be fair. As a community activist I am always asked the question; “how do you make your money?” Once you reach a certain level of activism it becomes pretty clear that the bank may not hire you. But, revolutionaries and civil rights warriors are not excused from feeding their families. Our bills come with the same regularity as the people that we represent.
Both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X were killed in the line of duty and both died virtually poor. Marcus Garvey died poor, as well. I sometimes wonder if the expectation of Black people dictate that their leadership be penniless in order to prove their nobility. If that is the case, we have not evolved far enough as a people to understand what it takes to make real revolutionary progress.
Dr. King’s children were recently in the news, also. Martin III and his sister Bernice filed a lawsuit against their brother, Dexter, claiming he mismanaged funds belonging to his father’s estate. This included several millions of dollars received from the selling of some of Dr. King’s personal writings. Dexter’s siblings claim that he siphoned off estate funds to support a lavish lifestyle. Even the first family of the civil rights movement is not immune to the drama that comes along with the so-called almighty dollar.
I am not knocking corporate sponsorship of Black organizations. As a matter of fact I encourage it. Black people are collectively spending billions of dollars annually with Nike, Mercedes-Benz, Target, Ralph Lauren, etc. We, as consumers, make them wealthy and powerful with dollars that we don’t have. They should all be made to give back to the Black community just as they give back to other communities that make them strong and viable. So you have corporate sponsors competing for the Black dollar and Black organizations competing for corporate sponsorship. The problem comes in when we bend over backwards to be accepted by them and compromise the principles of freedom, justice and equality in the process.
If we accept corporate America’s dollars on corporate America’s terms then we have become hirelings who are not worthy to lead our people. If we disassociate ourselves from other organizations in our community for fear of what “Mr. Kentucky Fried Chicken” will say then we have lost the testicular fortitude necessary to forge the way to freedom.
The best approach would be for Black people to spend less money with these companies and use it to support our own Black organizations. We must have the collective intelligence to realize that every time we spend outside of our community our dollars are used to support the agenda of another people. Every person within eye and earshot of this article should make a pledge to donate to a worthy Black organization or cause within the next 12 months. If we support our own then there is a better chance that they will maintain the “bass in their voices” while representing our best interests. This is also true for good Black politicians, but we will deal with that in a future article.
Remember, people, that freedom is not free. We cannot expect to get to the promise land on Pharaoh’s chariot. Support your own and hold them accountable. If we don’t then corporate America will.