To a larger degree, historians have examined the white American businesspeople about the economies and market cultures. This paper going to talk about the African American business and consumer cultures, such as blacks’ culture and entrepreneurship, African American and immigrant self-employment in the United States. Also the African Americans’ buying behavior like the selling strategy makes it success to African American, and what is the reason. At the end going to talk about cross-cultural business, how to do business in the African American community. Known African American’s culture and background history is always helps to be success to avoid the mistakes which you shouldn’t do.
Directly relating African American History and African American Business leaders, Pharrell Williams would be the perfect example of how the Black history influences the ways of business in the African American community. A lot of people might argue that he is not business man but he is the biggest entertainment business leader. “Every one of us is an amalgamation not only of all our ancestors, but of their decisions, and in 1831, Ambrose Hawkins was contemplating moving his family from America to Africa. Had he done so, his son Joseph would have been raised in Liberia instead of North Carolina and never would have become Pharrell Williams’s third great-grandfather. As it happens, Ambrose did go to Liberia, but opted for a solo round trip, rather than a family migration. If not for this last minute change of plans, the gene pool that would eventually produce Pharrell couldn’t have crystallized. He wouldn’t exist and the rest of us would be considerably less Happy. We wouldn’t Get Lucky and those Blurred Lines would remain clearly demarcated. All because one man changed his mind 183 years ago.”
Ambrose Hawkins had a plan. In the early 1830s, the cobbler decided to move his family to Africa, likely believing a new start there would be better than living in America, where even free blacks faced peril in the decades leading to the Civil War. Some of his family made the journey, but Hawkins never emigrated. Instead, he lived out his life along the North Carolina-Virginia border. Why he changed his mind is a mystery. One thing is clear: His choice to remain in the United States would influence his line of ancestry. And one of his descendants - born April 5, 1973, in Virginia Beach - would become one of the biggest showbiz names of the 21st century.
That great-great-great-great-grandson would turn out to be Pharrell Williams.
But the singer's story - and that of Hawkins' - likely would have remained untold were it not for a tenacious woman with an eye for detail. It was an entry in the 1860 U.S. Census that stopped Megan Smolenyak. When the nationally known genealogist found Ambrose Hawkins' name, she knew there was an intriguing tale to uncover.
For people of color to be listed in a census record before the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, they either had to be a freed slave or had to have been born free. About 4.4 million blacks were living in the country at the time, but 8 of every 9 of those were enslaved.
Hawkins, she discovered, was free. His family may have been free as early as the 1700s, although she couldn't find papers documenting the details.
The fates of many African Americans from those days, Smolenyak knew, are unknown because records of slaves were scarce or simply didn't exist. Their names - and the accounts of their lives - simply vanished into history.
By 1830, Hawkins had become a respected man in his community. He was educated and even had a permit for a gun, which required five signatures from people who would vouch for him.
In 1831, Hawkins and hundreds of other free African Americans were presented with the opportunity to leave the United States. A group of whites - many of whom were abolitionists - wanted to repatriate them to Africa.
The group, called the American Colonization Society, had bought land in Africa using donations as well as state and federal funds. The organization had established the community of Monrovia, named for a Virginian, then-President James Monroe.
Other Virginians would rise to govern the new country, which would be called Liberia. They included Southampton County resident Anthony W. Gardner and Norfolk resident Joseph Jenkins Roberts, who was known as the father of his country.
Among the society's membership were such famous names as Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Francis Scott Key and Daniel Webster. The motivations and philosophies of its members varied, but the group helped hundreds of free blacks sail from Norfolk to West Africa.
Hawkins was supposed to be one of those people.
It would take someone with Smolenyak's genealogical chops to dig into Hawkins' history.
It was Smolenyak who had discovered that the wrong Annie Moore had been credited as the first person to reach Ellis Island. Her work had famously linked Al Sharpton's ancestors to Strom Thurmond's, and she had found white relatives on the family tree of first lady Michelle Obama.
Smolenyak has written several books and worked on more than a dozen TV shows about genealogy. She has traced the families of more than 1,000 soldiers whose bodies were returned to the United States, and she has been helping the Bureau of Indian Affairs to find people who don't know they own property.
Smolenyak became intrigued by Pharrell Williams and decided to research his roots, knowing that his family's past might include slavery, which would mean limited information.
"But about 10 percent of African Americans were free before Emancipation and, by the time you get back to the Civil War, many people have lots of branches," Smolenyak said. "There's a way around that brick wall."
Her search led her to Hawkins, and his story proved challenging. She had to search obscure newsletters and locate letters in the Library of Congress - research other folks might not be willing to do or know how to undertake. But she kept going.
"I've researched thousands of families, and I'd never seen a story like this," she said.
Part of the mystery of Hawkins' past lay with the person who penned letters to the American Colonization Society.
Joseph J. Gray of Brinkleyville, N.C., had approached Hawkins about traveling to Liberia. Gray was a Presbyterian minister who owned 14 slaves he wanted to free, and he began writing to the society in 1830.
His goal, he wrote, was to send Hawkins on the journey as a sort of scout who would return and persuade others to follow. Hawkins was to travel from Baltimore aboard the Margaret Mercer, but the details of the voyage didn't reach him in time to make the trip.
In September 1831, Gray wrote a letter to the society, saying that Hawkins had changed his mind about being a scout and wanted instead to take his entire family.
A month earlier in Southampton County, a slave rebellion led by Nat Turner had left nearly 200 African Americans and about 60 whites dead. Afterward, hundreds of free blacks from that area chose to leave the country.
On Dec. 9, 1831, Hawkins was one of more than 335 people to sail from Norfolk aboard the James Perkins, the first ship to leave for Liberia after the revolt. Most of its passengers were from Southampton County.
The trip would be recorded as the largest single influx of immigrants to West Africa. The ship and its journey, Smolenyak has written, would become the stuff of pioneer lore for Liberians.
The journey took five weeks, according to a letter written by ship carpenter and preacher Robert Allen. He described the trip as a "delightful passage" and the 27-year-old Hawkins as "quite a genteel young man."
But Hawkins' family members weren't with him, and Smolenyak couldn't find any documents to explain their absence.
Hawkins spent about 12 days in Liberia in January 1832.
Four months later, Gray sent his 14 slaves to Africa. Hawkins did the same with relatives of his wife, China Harwell, as well as some nieces and nephews. It's unclear why he never followed.
Hawkins may have believed things around Southampton County had settled down after Turner's capture, Smolenyak speculated. Or Hawkins may have received word of hardships in Africa that discouraged him from returning.
Instead, he lived the rest of his life in this country.
And his son, Joseph J., possibly named for his friend and benefactor, became the great-great-great-grandfather of a man named Pharrell Williams.
The musician likely has relatives in Liberia, but most of his ancestors can be traced to areas along the border of North Carolina and Virginia and into Hampton Roads. He also has Native American blood, which he mentioned in passing during a visit to his hometown in June.
It's unknown whether Williams or anyone in his family has read Smolenyak's online account of his heritage. The singer's publicist did not respond to phone calls or emails for this story.
Smolenyak doesn't contact celebrities because she doesn't want to be intrusive. She prefers to write about and publicize her findings, allowing the stars to learn more if they're interested.
"Every family has a story," she said.
And this one hinged on a decision made more than a century before Williams was born.
"That was one of the things I loved," Smolenyak said. "Trying to get across the message of the ripple effect that our ancestors and our choices have."
If Hawkins had left his home, Williams wouldn't have grown up in Virginia's largest city or graduated from Princess Anne High School.
Because Hawkins stayed, lives took a different course. And Williams became one of the musical voices of his generation.
With apologies in advance for this over-simplification, the American Colonization Society was created in 1816 with the objective of transporting free blacks from America to a colony in Africa. Paul Cuffee, a New England sea captain of African and Native heritage, piloted the idea in 1815 by taking 38 individuals to Sierra Leone, but passed away before getting much further – though not before inspiring others. Among the founders and early members of the ACS were notables of the time including Henry Clay, Francis Scott Key, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, and Bushrod Washington, the Society’s first president, a Supreme Court Justice, and nephew of George Washington.
Sponsoring the first emigrants in 1820, the ACS would ultimately be instrumental in sending thousands of Americans to Africa, as well as in the establishment of Liberia (Descendants of the earliest emigrants would run the country for over 130 years from the time of its official founding in 1847.). The organization dwindled in the early-1900s, but wasn’t formally dissolved until 1964. It was controversial from inception and remains so today with academic consensus shifting over time, not surprising given the mixed bag of motivations behind the Society and among its supporters and members.
Some abolitionists, for instance, believed that blacks would never have equal opportunities in America, so would be better off in Africa. But these benevolent intentions were countered by those who regarded blacks as inferior and a burden to society. Still others perceived free blacks as a threat because they might undercut wages, or worse, incite slaves to revolt. So it was that a peculiar coalition, encompassing everyone from Quakers to slaveholders, formed. While they held widely divergent views, they found common purpose in “repatriation.” The solution, they felt, was to “re-convey them to the land of their fathers” – “them” being free persons of color.
In language and logic that makes us wince today, the Society argued, “If we received them slaves, return them freemen. If they came hither Pagans, let them go back Christians – bearing with them the example and the fruits of civilized life, and the still more inestimable tidings of salvation, to the hordes of Africa.” This approach would relieve “the South from danger, and the North from pauperism.”
These quotes, complete with their deliberately italicized words, come from a letter written on December 10, 1831 by W.A. Duer, President of the New York chapter of the Society, as well as President of Columbia University. That same day, Pharrell’s ancestor, Ambrose Hawkins, was on a ship headed to Liberia.
Liberia Bound
I know this because before even before I went to the Library of Congress, I searched the Virginia Emigrants to Liberia website (www.vcdh.virginia.edu/liberia), the engaging brainchild of historians Marie Tyler-McGraw, Deborah A. Lee, and Scot French. Though he wasn’t from Virginia, Ambrose Hawkins is included in this emigrants database. Looking later at a copy of the original document, I saw that he was recorded immediately after three others from Southampton, Virginia. There were no ditto marks next to his name, and since there was no place of origin at all listed for him, the natural assumption would have been Southampton – especially given that the vast majority of those on board were from Virginia and more than 80 percent from Southampton.
Ambrose Hawkins, age 27, shoemaker on emigration register for The James Perkins
(Reel 314, American Colonization Society Records, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.)
The ship was the James Perkins and the manifest notes that it left Norfolk on December 9, 1831. This corroborated another ACS letter I found online from an enthusiastic emigrant named Robert Allen, a ship carpenter and preacher. Dated January 23, 1832 from Monrovia (they had arrived on the 14th after five weeks at sea), he wrote of the “delightful passage,” his favorable impressions of the colony, and of receiving “attention and kindness from Mr. Ambrose Hawkins, quite a genteel young man.”
As it happened, Robert Allen was the first person listed on the manifest and Ambrose Hawkins the last. This trip by the James Perkins would carry 338 passengers, the largest ever, single influx of emigrants to West Africa, and along with a cluster of other ships (Elizabeth, Nautilus, Oswego, Cyrus, Vine, Indian Chief, Doris, and Harriet) would become part of the pioneer lore of Liberia.
I would later discover how lucky I was that the manifest still existed. The original had been stolen in a case that had been left momentarily unguarded in Norfolk, but due to departure delays caused by suspected overloading and weather issues, the shipping agent had time to draw up a new passenger list. Had that not been so, this proof of Ambrose’s extraordinary journey may well have evaporated.
The Middleman: Joseph J. Gray
At this point, I treated myself to a two-day immersion at the Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress, a genealogist’s version of vacation. My sister, who’s usually game to accompany me on my random deep dives into history, came along to help. Two sets of eyes proved to be very useful for the task before us.
We quickly developed an efficient process for scanning the semi-organized files of the Society, plucking out and copying the relevant bits. As I had hoped, Ambrose was mentioned in more letters, though we weren’t fortunate enough to find anything written by him. But Joseph J. Gray had exchanged at least seven letters with ACS, four of which discussed Ambrose. The remaining letters concerned 14 slaves he would send on a later ship in May 1832, various donations, and other matters. We also pored over emigrant lists, interoffice mail, board minutes, and other materials to get a more complete picture.
Armed with a flash drive full of digitized documents, I returned home to digest these papers, but found myself curious about Joseph J. Gray, so took a detour to look further into him. What emerged was the impression of a man evolving, becoming zealous in pursuit of a cause, and eventually running out of steam.
Born into to a well-to-do family, but orphaned at a young age, he experienced a religious awakening at college. Joseph studied first in Raleigh, North Carolina and later at Union College in Schenectady, New York, where his theological interests deepened.
“Joseph J. Gray’s home just south of Brinkleyville, North Carolina
(http://www.hpo.ncdcr.gov/nr/HX0019.pdf)
In the 1820s, he built a home in Halifax County that still stands today and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Gray-Brownlow-Willcox House. This would have been the place he brought his first wife, a niece of Union College’s president, Eliphalet Nott, to in 1826. The 1830 census finds him living there in a household of 21, including 14 slaves.
Then in rapid succession, he corresponded with the ACS about his desire to liberate his slaves and arrange for them to emigrate to Liberia, encouraged the Society to send Ambrose Hawkins and later Rev. John Nott (an apparent relative of his wife’s) to travel to Liberia so they could return to essentially help “market” the initiative, became a Presbyterian minister, released his slaves for “repatriation,” sold his home, and moved – initially elsewhere in North Carolina, and later to Indiana and Illinois. Due to health issues, his ministerial career was brief, and like many at that time, he remarried upon losing his first wife. His post-1840 life was unremarkable and he would eventually die an elderly man in Macoupin County, Illinois in 1888.
Over the course of Joseph’s exchange with the Society, he became increasingly zealous, using flowery language in praise of its “noble cause” and hailing “with joy every occurrence which has even the remotest bearing on the prosperity of your excellent institution.” His effort to have the ACS sponsor a round trip for Rev. Nott was seemingly an attempt to engage the backing of the Presbyterian Church. He assured the Society that, “friends would be raised up, prejudices removed, correct information diffused, and the pecuniary interests of the colony greatly promoted.” His powers of persuasion convinced the board who approved the journey, but no record can be found of Rev. Nott ever going.
Joseph’s ardent belief in the objectives of the ACS is evident, but just as his fervor reached a peak, it abruptly faded. Perhaps it was his ordination as a minister that distracted him, or his pending move, or his growing frustration trying to get others to see what was apparently so clear to him, but whatever the cause, his later letters were brief and business-like.