Achievements in Black History

South Hackensack, NJ
February 1, 2012
E-Tech May Newsletter
by Candace Kennedy candace@ethnictechnologies.com

With the celebration of Martin Luther King’s 83rd birthday on Monday January 16th and the coming to the end of the third year of office for our first black president, E-Tech would like to honor all those who contributed to African American History achievements.

The 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama as president of the United States marked a defining moment in both American and World history. This historic event was another step toward Martin Luther King’s dream of a more equitable society. Throughout Black History Month we remember how Black American leaders of all kinds helped to bring our Nation together.

History of Black History

In February, the nation joins Black Americans in celebrating their rich culture, heritage, and contributions to the American lifestyle during Black History Month. Black History Month began as “Negro History Week” in 1926 which was established by Carter G. Woodson and was expanded to a month long celebration in 1976. Woodson is said to have chosen the second week in February for the celebration to honor the birthdays of Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist and editor, and Abraham Lincoln.

The scope to which Blacks have contributed to American life can be witnessed at even the most fundamental levels: Garrett Morgan invented the first Traffic Signal (1923); Lewis Latimer invented the Carbon Filament used in Light Bulbs (1882); Richard Spikes invented the Automatic Gear Shift (1932) and Lydia O. Newman invented the Hair Brush (1898). Today, Black Americans are still achieving firsts in politics, education and business: Condoleezza Rice was the first Black Woman to serve as US Secretary of State; President Barack Obama was the first African American President of the Harvard Law Review and was the first African American to run for the Democratic Party's Presidential Candidacy; and Robert Johnson, owner of Black Entertainment Television, became the first Black Billionaire in 2001.

The Black Consumer Market

There are 42 million African Americans and they comprise 13.6 percent of the U.S. population down from 14.8 percent of the population in 2000. African Americans became the nation’s second-largest minority group in the first decade of the 21st century. The African American population exceeded 500,000 in 15 states. They are the largest minority group in 24 states, compared with 20 states in which Hispanics were the largest minority group.

The Black population is younger than the rest of the U.S population. In 2011 the median age of the Black population was 41 compared to the general U.S. population at nearly 45. In addition, females represent a greater percentage of the Black population in the United States. While the Black American median household income is lower than the U.S. average, the percentage of Black American households with an income of $50,000.00 or more grew 13.5% between 2003 and 2010, compared with 8.4% for the total U.S. households.

According to the University of Georgia’s Selig Center for Economic Growth, the buying power of Black Americans was $895 Billion in 2010 and estimates the buying power in 2012 to reach $1.1 trillion. In that same year, the US Census Bureau estimated the number of Black residents at 40.7 million, comprising 13.5% of the total US population. The number of Black-owned businesses was 1.8 million in 2010, a 58% increase since 1997 and Black businesses generated revenues of $92.7 Billion that year. Black Americans are also gaining ground in education. In 2010, 18% of Black Americans held Bachelor Degrees and 1.7 million held advanced degrees (Master’s, J.D., M.D. PhD).

As this group becomes more educated and their median household income increases, they will have greater control of the consumer marketplace. Black Americans are attracted to companies that represent their lifestyle with targeted messages and images. It is the responsibility of marketers to attract and maintain a relationship with the Black consumer.

“Black folk are not just dark-skinned white people. Marketers who consciously establish a relationship with this lucrative yet underserved market, by better understanding the African-American culture, mindset, attitude, behavior and lifestyle, will reap significant long-term rewards from a loyal, influential, increasingly affluent customer base.”
-Herbert Kemp, Founder & CEO of What is Black about IT? LLC

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LOCATION
More than half of black Americans live in the South.
New York had the largest black population of any state as of July 1, 2010 (3.6 million); Georgia had the largest numeric increase since July 1, 2007 (67,500). The District of Columbia had the highest percentage of blacks (56 percent), followed by Mississippi (38 percent).

Cook County, Ill. (Chicago’s county) had the largest black population of any county (1.4 million), and Orleans Parish, La. (New Orleans’ county) had the largest numeric increase since July 1, 2007 (16,000). Claiborne County, Miss. -- on the Louisiana border --had the highest percentage of blacks in the nation (84 percent).

Seventy-seven counties were majority-black or African-American; all were in the South.

More than half of black American (53 percent) rent their homes—that’s the largest percentage of renters among the races in the U.S.

GENDER
There are more women than men.

Households: Nearly one out of every three black households (29 percent) are headed by a single woman, the highest percentage of female-headed households in the U.S.

MARRIAGE
Nearly half have never married, the highest percentage for all racial groups. Only 30 percent of blacks are now married.

MONEY
Black median family income was just over $34,000 in 2010, the lowest in the United States of any racial group. A single black woman with children earned a median annual income of $25,958.

No surprise then that one out of five black families lives in poverty. More than 40 percent of black families headed by a single mom are poor.

From 1974 to 2004, the median income fell 12% for Black men while rising 75% for Black women.

IMMIGRANTS
Only 3 million African Americans are immigrants. Of that number, nearly two-thirds were born in Latin America, the other one-third of the immigrants were born in Africa.

Only 7 percent of us speak a language other than English.

MILITARY
Number of black military veterans in the United States in 2010: 2.3 million. More military veterans are black than any other minority group.

Ethnic Technologies, LLC -- African American Insight
Ethnic Technologies, LLC is the platinum standard in multicultural marketing. The result of over 40 years of continuous ethnic, religious and language preference research, E-Tech allows clients to segment their database by ethnicity, religion, language preference and Hispanic country of origin more accurately and comprehensively than any other approach. E-Tech incorporates a unique approach for identifying the different African American Consumers. After identifying by their specific names, E-Tech does a neighborhood analysis using multi-sourced information compiled from our research team. From that data, E-Tech is able to accurately identify the African American individuals’ Country of Origin. The incorporation of Enhanced Neighborhood Analytics (ENA) technology in E-Tech Version 8.0 establishes a new and unprecedented level of granularity and completeness in the ethnic marketing industry. Clients also benefit from and acquire ethnic mailing, telemarketing and email lists for both the United States and Canada. The analytics department at E-TECH offers ethnic data appending services and mapping to provide businesses with an overview of new and existing markets.

E-Tech ® and The EthniCenter ® are registered trademarks of Ethnic Technologies, LLC. www.ethnictechnologies.com

Multicultural Name Identification

by Candace candace@ethnictechnologies.com

Conventional wisdom says that America is a melting pot of many different cultures. Try mixing up six different cheeses in a pot then try to find the different taste values of each. It is very difficult to do. The same idea applies to identifying the different cultures that make up our nation. The segmentation system that we habitually use simply divides the population into color or racial categories: White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian. Using this type of approach or methodology has its downfalls and in most cases antiquated census information is used, as it's sole input for development. A better approach is to see the diversity in America as a mixed salad, where each ethnicity is a different ingredient and can be identified. This method, if used properly applies to the many ethnicities and different cultures in our nation and each can be identified.

Marketers, researchers, advertising agencies and the media often market to Hispanics as a separate group from Whites, Blacks and Asians. When you take an in-depth look at the Hispanic population in the Untied States they often associate with one or more of the aforementioned racial groups and those racial groups can be correlated to their country of origin or cultural identity. An individual or family from Puerto Rico does not exhibit the same cultural identity or buying habits as those of a family that has immigrated to the US from Mexico. If that is the case then why do marketers, researchers, advertising agencies and the media often approach Hispanic's as a whole with the same exact offers, disregard their country of origin and then complain that their campaigns were not successful. Even the dialect of the Spanish language they speak differs.

The same issues arise and in greater depth when attempting to target the Asian community, the "One Size Fits All" mentality is often the method used and low response rates and product interests are the norm. With so many different Asian countries of origin and Asian languages of preference currently residing in the US, it is the smart marketer that embraces technology that allows them to identify all ethnicities, countries of origin and languages that are available. An offer tailored to a Chinese American living in San Francisco CA should differentiate from one being tailored to a Korean American living in Fort Lee NJ or a Vietnamese American living in Houston TX. Now if you add into the mix the different levels of assimilation and acculturation, the buying habits and traditional cultural customs the individual embraces are all over the chart.

An individual's ethnicity is not in all circumstances related to ones "Country of Origin". A Deepak Banerjee may have been born in England and then came to our country, but his ethnicity and cultural identity is Indian and in most cases his religion would be Hindu.

Many ethnic and religious groups in the United States maintain a strong cultural identity. They are often attracted to communities with their same ethnicity, communities in which many traditional cultural customs are maintained. Given that the ethnic diversity in the US is far more reflective of a global landscape, it is even more important for marketers to fully understand cultural differences, language preference, purchasing habits and other socioeconomic information and integrate those variations into their everyday marketing strategies and tactics. The time for the" One Size Fits All" methodology is gone that way of the dinosaur.