What Is Ujamaa?
The fourth principle of Kwanzaa, Ujamaa, means cooperative economics. – One United Bank
Ujamaa Pages was created from a need. For the community to come together and support one another. We are here to help promote black-owned businesses so that the community knows what services are out there and for small business owners to get more business! If you are interested in listing your business with us, click on Add Listing. It’s absolutely free!
Packages will be available in the future to help you further advertise your business and support other local black-owned businesses.
Team
Janice Barber Wilson, Founder
Janice Barber-Wilson is a graduate of the Little Rock Central High School. She earned a BA in Education from HBCU Philander Smith College, MS in Library Media Science from the University of Central Arkansas and specialist certification in Elementary Principalship from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
Mrs. Barber -Wilson has worked as an educator for twenty-eight years in several positions; classroom teacher and library media specialist before serving as a principal at William E. Woodruff Elementary and Winthrop P. Rockefeller Elementary. She also has served as the Children’s Ministry Director of her church at Perfecting New Life and later at Greater Nation International Ministries in Little Rock and is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Beta Pi Omega Chapter. Janice and her husband of 36 years, David have four adult children and nine grandchildren.
“I became interested in the “what if” regarding African American community economics as I studied the historic story of West 9th Street in Little Rock, Arkansas. Similar events in Pine Bluff, Elaine, Oklahoma and various areas (some known but not discussed) intrigued me even more. The Ujamma Pages was developed from that interest”.
As a library media specialist, Barber-Wilson understands research is vital to knowledge. How to find the right information when needed is imperative.
How can we patronize minority businesses when we do not know who they are, where they are, and what services they provide?
The Ujamma Pages is a search engine that will provide information of services provided by Black professionals. The goal is to assist minority businesses large and small to advertise and make their services known.
Whether it be cake baking, plumbing, tax preparation, attorneys, or someone to assemble furniture, you can find them using The Ujamma Pages!
We urge all service providers and home-based businesses to register for The Ujamma Pages. Businesses are not charged a fee to list.
Nikiya Simpson
Nikiya is a creative and developer, specializing in dynamic web applications that can be used in service to humanity and our community. Nikiya is also a community organizer and instructor, helping introduce the Little Rock and Central Arkansas community to new and emerging technologies that can help individuals, organizations, and small businesses.
A History of 9th Street and Black Entrepreneurialism
West 9th Street was a predominately African American neighborhood which became the center of the Black business district. Black business owners occupied six blocks between West Broadway and Chester streets in downtown Little Rock, with a laundromat, restaurants, stenographer and notary public offices, retail shops, and more. The 1920s was known as the “Golden Era” for the area’s black community. West 9th Street continued to grow throughout this time, but the Great Depression of the 1930s devastated many businesses and fraternal groups in downtown Little Rock, including the Mosaic Templars.
West 9th boomed during the 1940s and 1950s, with dance clubs and live entertainment providing an outlet for the black community. However, despite (or due to) the many flourishing businesses along West Ninth Street, this Little Rock community faced demolition and clearance as part of the national Urban Renewal project.
Also affecting businesses and homes in the area was the construction of Interstate 630 beginning in the 1960s, which has been blamed for significant social alterations in the state’s capital city, exacerbating racial and economic divides.
Mosaic Templars Headquarters
The Mosaic Templars of America, was an African American fraternal organization founded in Little Rock in 1882 and incorporated in 1883 by two former slaves, John E. Bush and Chester W. Keatts. Headquarted on the prominent West 9th area of Little Rock, the organization was established to provide important services to the African-American community. Like many black businesses throughout the United States, the Mosaic Templars of America organization was forced out of business during the Great Depression
Tulsa’s ‘Black Wall Street’ flourished as a self-contained hub in the early 1900s. Thousands of Black Tulsa, Oklahoma residents had built a self-sustaining community that supported hundreds of Black-owned businesses. It was known as “Black Wall Street.”
By 1921,Tulsa’s Greenwood District was one of the wealthiest Black communities in the U.S. and a center of Black wealth. The community of roughly 10,000 residents was thriving and supported Black-owned banks, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores and luxury shops, along with offices for Black lawyers and doctors. Because Tulsa was still very much racially segregated at the time, the Black residents mostly patronized Black-owned businesses, which helped the community thrive.
In fact, the community was so self-sustaining that it’s now estimated that every dollar spent in the Greenwood District circulated within the neighborhood and its businesses at least 36 times, according to historians.
The Tulsa race massacre, a tragic event perpetrated on Black Wall Street, which has been described as “the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.” The incident, which is estimated to have claimed the lives of as many as 300 people (the vast majority being Black), devastated a neighborhood that had grown over the previous 15 years to become one of the wealthiest enclaves for Black Americans in the country.
The Grand Masonic Temple was built in stages beginning in 1902 by the Sovereign Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of Arkansas, the state’s Black Masonic order. The temple is located in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and still stands today. The building served as the meeting place for the Masons and Order of the Eastern Star and other Masonic houses until 2005.
The building was rebuilt after a fire damaged the upper floors in 1954. In 1955, in addition to the Grand Lodge’s offices, The Grand Masonic Temple housed several offices of Black doctors and dentists.
For additional information:
Bush, A. E., and P. L. Dorman. History of the Mosaic Templars of America: Its Founders and Officials. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2008.
Love, Berna J. End of the Line: A History of Little Rock’s West Ninth Street. Little Rock: Center for Arkansas Studies, 2003.
Smith, Shanika. “The Success and Decline of Little Rock’s West Ninth Street.” Pulaski County Historical Review 67 (Summer 2019): 41–50.
Sorrows, Devin. “Memory Unearthed: An Archeological Investigation of Two Sites on Little Rock’s Historic West Ninth Street.” Pulaski County Historical Review 68 (Fall 2020): 66–70.
Mosaic Templars Cultural Center A Museum of African American History
Mosiac Templars Cultural Center Museum
501 West Ninth Street
Little Rock, AR 72201
More Resources
Tulsa Race Massacre Publisher: A&E Television Network. Original Published Date – March 8, 2018
Tulsa Race Massacre Author: History.com Editors
Grand Masonic Temple Still Stands vacant after years as Meeting Place; Author:Micheak Schwarz, Pine Bluff Commercial, January 21, 2021
Abandoned Atlas Foundation website: https://AbandonedAR.com
A Spirit of Entrepreneurialism
The fourth Kwanzaa principal is Ujamma (Cooperative Economics). This principle refers to uplifting your community economically. “To build and maintain our own stores, shops and other businesses and to profit from them together.”
Ujamma is a commitment to the practice of shared social wealth and the work necessary to achieve it. Ujamaa literally means familyhood.
We urge all service providers to register for the Ujamma Pages. Businesses are not charged a fee to list.