Who is Dr. Claud Anderson?
Seven words: THE BEST ECONOMIC MIND IN BLACK AMERICA.
Dr. Anderson has a broad base of experiences spanning education, business, federal and state politics and social reform. He served as State Coordinator of Education in Florida during the 1970s, during which time he also founded the State Action Council, a coalition of Black leaders for political action in Florida. He went on to serve as President Jimmy Carter’s Assistant Secretary in theU.S. Department of Commerce.
Dr. Anderson also became the first Black radio station owner ( WOWD-FM) in Tallahassee, Florida, and served as Executive Director of two economic development corporations for the city of Miami.
As special assistant to the 1988 Democratic Convention, he awarded 37% of the contracts to Blacks, a record that has not been reached or broken since.
Currently, Dr. Claud Anderson is President of The Harvest Institute, a nationally recognized Black think tank that works to help Black America become self-sufficient and economically competitive. He is the author of PowerNomics : The National Plan to Empower Black America
In other words, he knows what he is doing and what he is talking about.
Powernomics; The Economic Philosophy of Dr. Claud Anderson
Dr. Claud Anderson and United Black America
The teachings of Dr. Anderson have become the principal economic philosophy of United Black America for several reasons;
1. Dr. Anderson’s philosophy of re-integration of the fragmented black communities of the world match United Black America’s philosophy of “do for self”.
Dr. Anderson likens the effect integration to a person going through a metal detector at an airport security post. The person can only pass through if he gives up his keys, his coins, his belt, his shoes, his brief case, his wallet, etc.
Like the person at the check point, Black people surrender all of their economic resources – and even elements of our identity - to pass through and be accepted into White society, but unlike the airport scenario, Blacks dont get anything back!
2. Dr. Claude Anderson has repeatedly expressed the need for building Black economic coalitions, economic empires, and collectives – view that we have suggested and taken action on since the inception of the United Black America Organization.
From Business Lesson of Marcus Garvey to Building a Black Cooperative , we have repeatedly accentuated the call for unified economic efforts. Time is running out for Black men and women in the diaspora to secure our financial future. With each drought and natural disaster (See Hurricane Katrina and our post, How the World is Still Destroying Haiti), we come closer to the precipice. In a 1995 meeting of Philadelphia’s African American Chamber of Commerce, he made this prophetic statement:
“Unless African Americans put together a coherent educational and economic strategy, they risk becoming a permanent underclass within 20 years. Black businesspeople will have to lead; you must build an alternative economic and educational system as soon as you can. For 400 years, we’ve been in the lowest levels of a real-life Monopoly game. You do not have enough wealth and power to be competitive. And time is running out on you.”
3. Dr. Claude Anderson has provided the Black community with a sensible blueprint for vertical integration of industries that matter to us. In his groundbreaking book, PowerNomics : The National Plan to Empower Black America
Dr. Anderson’s ideas should not be taken as the last word on Black economic power, but as the first. We should have taken and ran with his ideas long ago by innovating, building black cooperatives and new economic models, and by insulating our economy from the disasters of the global economy as a whole. (Shouts out to men like Freeman at Rise and Grind and Ed at Dream and Hustle who embody these principles in practical ways).
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