Heads Black Affairs for the Commerce Department

African American businesses grew rapidly during the first three decades of the 1900s. Thus, there was a need to find a person who could work with the U.S. Department of Commerce to help make its publications and activities meaningful to black entrepreneurs. Claude A. Barnett (1889?–1967), founder of the powerful Associated Negro Press (ANP), persuaded the Republican administration to hire Jackson as “Negro information specialist” to serve this need. While the Republicans were no great friends of black America, they knew that the National Negro Business League had strong ties to the Republican Party and, of course, the presidential election of 1928 was coming up. Thus, in May 1927, Barnett notified the administration and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover that he had a candidate for the post, “Billboard” Jackson.

In Enterprise & Society , Robert E. Weems Jr. and Lewis A. Randolph chronicled James Jackson’s life as promoter of “Negro Affairs” for the U.S. Department of Commerce beginning November 1927 and ending in 1933. They wrote that, although Jackson failed to “generate the direct financial assistance to black entrepreneurs” associated with later federal initiatives, he pioneered in efforts “to provide black businesspeople with useful information,” and he “helped to positively reshape contemporary African American entrepreneurs’ belief about the role of government in their lives.”

Jackson’s appointment was surrounded by racial issues and began and ended in the midst of political maneuverings. His duties began on November 15, 1927, and his race was withheld to avoid criticism from whites in the department. Thus, he was referred to as a dark-skinned foreigner, whom whites could accept over a black American. While Jackson passed a civil service examination and was hired for the position of commercial agent, the Commerce Department’s “Daily Bulletin” listed him as an assistant business specialist. Jackson and the department remained at odds over how his post would be publicized, particularly in the African American business community that he was hired to serve. Political overtones arose when the department envisioned the forthcoming presidential election with Hoover in the race and again feared negative reaction from whites. Finally, the department officials resolved the matter of title and called him special agent; a commercial agent designation was reserved for the department’s foreign staff.

Jackson attended a meeting of African American leaders from the field of business, education, religion, and elsewhere in the community, which was held in Durham on December 7-9, 1927. Called the Durham Fact-Finding Conference (also known as a Stock-Taking and Fact-Finding Conference on the American Negro) the session provided Jackson’s introduction as a Department of Commerce official. The conference dealt with a number of issues, including black business organizations, health conditions of the race, religious progress, political progress, insurance (including fraternal, mutual, and life), educational progress, and black relations everywhere. In his address to the audience, Jackson noted that there were no African American organizations on the bureau’s list of contacts.

By early 1929, both the Department of Commerce and Hoover, who was now in office, displayed some sensitivity toward racial parity, at least in the matter of business. Some of the changes were due to the pressure brought to bear on Hoover by Barnett, who was also secretary of the Colored Voters Division of the GOP as well as wielder of the power of the Associated Negro Press to give positive news coverage to the administration. Barnett’s efforts were partly devoted to ensuring that Jackson was treated fairly. Jackson traveled widely in 1929 and 1930, visited 34 cities, and gave presentations to nearly 30,000 people. He also held numerous interviews in his Washington office and responded to inquiries regarding research. According to Weems and Randolph, “the primary message Jackson presented to the black business community was that of self-help.” He also attended the second Durham Fact-Finding Conference on April 17-19, 1929, and told the audience that the general public expected black entrepreneurs to bear full responsibility for themselves.

As he called for efficiency in black business operations, he criticized blacks for patronizing non-black businesses but fell short of endorsing the “buy black” practice that was gaining in popularity around that time. The Colored Merchants Association (CMA), however, embraced Jackson’s call for business efficiency, for it, too, advocated such practice. The CMA, organized in Montgomery, Alabama in 1928, spread rapidly across the country and was especially active in Harlem. Albon L. Holsey, National Negro Business League secretary, organized chapters across the country. The CMA advocated cooperative purchasing and advertising in an effort to keep costs low for black consumers. Jackson aided the CMA movement by holding a three-month training course in Harlem for grocers on issues such as business efficiency and modern management. He also compiled extensive data about black businesses for the Department of Commerce, and surveyed national, state, and local African American organizations, thus providing the department extensive information about black enterprises.

Hoover and his administration never took Jackson’s work seriously but appeared to use him for whatever political gains they could garner. The African American community, according to Weems and Randolph, linked Holsey’s and Jackson’s interest in Hoover and the Republicans to “class considerations.” The black masses, who were hit hard when the Great Depression of the 1930s worsened, began to oppose Hoover and the Republican Party and later embraced Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal public assistance. After the presidential election of 1932, Republicans Hoover and Jackson were out of office; Democrat Eugene Kinckle Jones (1885–1954), a National Urban League official, replaced Jackson.