By Dominique Milton
In uncertain times, it’s tempting to clutch every dollar and spend only where it feels safest. But how and where we spend is just as important as how much we save. Every dollar has power. When invested locally, it doesn’t stop at the cash register, it multiplies.
Economists call this the multiplier effect. A dollar spent with a local or diverse business can circulate through the community, generating as much as $1.72 in broader economic activity. That money pays wages, covers rent, supports schools, and fuels other businesses. The opposite is also true: when dollars leave the community, spent at a national chain or outside the neighborhood, the multiplier disappears.
Black Wall Streets: From Tulsa to North Carolina
Across America, Black Wall Streets once thrived — in Tulsa, Richmond, and right here in North Carolina, in cities like Durham, Wilmington, and Charlotte. In Durham, Parrish Street was home to thriving banks, insurance companies, and small businesses, earning the title “Black Wall Street of the South.” Wilmington, before the violent massacre of 1898, had a flourishing Black business district where professionals and entrepreneurs built wealth and stability. In Charlotte, the Brooklyn neighborhood was a bustling hub of Black businesses, churches, and civic life before urban renewal projects and highway construction dismantled the community.
These were not isolated pockets of prosperity. They were proof that when dollars circulated locally — in barber shops, grocery stores, restaurants, schools, hospitals, and banks — entire neighborhoods grew strong, self-sufficient, and resilient.
From Strength to “Thought Deserts”
Today, many of those once-strong neighborhoods are gone or severely diminished. When businesses left, so did investment. Food deserts replaced grocery stores. Underperforming schools replaced once-thriving institutions. Local hospitals, once Black-led and community-backed, have dwindled to just two: Howard University Hospital and Meharry Medical College Hospital. The loss isn’t just about services; it’s about the erosion of the multiplier effect that made those communities strong.
And in places like Taylortown and Jackson Hamlet, just outside Pinehurst, another layer of history shows how intentional policy shaped economic outcomes. These Black communities were built by workers who helped create Pinehurst’s success. Yet, through a practice known as underbounding, they were kept outside the town’s official limits, excluded from basic municipal services like water, sewer, and infrastructure. Underbounding wasn’t an accident; it was a deliberate boundary drawn to deny access, representation, and investment. And yet, despite those barriers, Taylortown thrived, becoming a self-sustaining community with its own schools, churches, and local identity. It is a reminder that resilience and intentionality can carve out strength even when systems are designed to withhold it.
Thriving by Design; Black Enclaves
Not every story is one of loss. There are places that show what concentrated intentionality can achieve. Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts, became a haven where Black families could buy property, build businesses, and create generational wealth along the shores of Martha’s Vineyard. For over a century, it has remained a place of cultural pride and economic stability.
Further south, American Beach in Florida, founded in 1935 by Abraham Lincoln Lewis – the state’s first Black millionaire – was established as a resort for African Americans during segregation. It thrived as a self-sufficient community with its own businesses, cultural life, and property ownership. Both examples remind us that when communities concentrate their dollars and energy intentionally, they not only survive but flourish.
We Don’t Need Permission
Here’s the good news: we don’t have to wait for a big-box chain to decide whether our neighborhoods deserve investment. We can create our own solutions. Churches can host farmers markets. Black farmers can fuel those markets with fresh produce. Small grocery stores can open their doors again. Doctors’ offices can move back into underserved neighborhoods. We can even teach healthy cooking options where food access is limited.
This is not about handouts — it’s about rebuilding ecosystems that make communities self-sufficient, resilient, and prosperous.
Intentional Spending, Intentional Saving
Being intentional doesn’t mean reckless spending. Saving money remains critical in today’s shaky economy. But when we do spend, we must ask: Does this dollar build my community, or drain it? Each transaction is a vote. Supporting a local grocer, barber, or contractor is not charity — it is an investment in strong schools, safer neighborhoods, and healthier families.
Planting Seeds of Renewal
The multiplier effect is proof that every dollar can be a seed. When planted locally, those seeds grow into opportunity, resilience, and generational wealth.
North Carolina has already shown what’s possible. Our Black Wall Streets were proof of concept. Our underbounded communities like Taylortown and Jackson Hamlet remind us of both the cost of exclusion and the strength of resilience. And thriving examples like Oak Bluffs and American Beach show us what’s possible when intentionality takes root. The question now is whether we will be deliberate enough to bring that spirit and those dollars back home at such a time as this!
