← B.E. 40th ANNIVERSARY COVER GALLERY

nd-1970-AUGUST

By Alfred Edmond, Jr. | Published August 8, 2010 | Full size is 501 × 320 pixels

The cover of the collector's edition August 2010 40th Anniversary Issue of Black Enterprise features an editors' choice of the 40 covers that best tell the story of Black Enterprise as the undisputed chronicler of black American business achievement and economic progress. Here are the stories behind the covers, year by year. In the August 1970 premiere issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE, the mission statement read: “Lacking capital, managerial and technical knowledge and crippled by prejudice, the minority businessman has been effectively kept out of the profitable corner of the American marketplace. We want to help change this.” Over the past 40 years, BLACK ENTERPRISE has sought to do just that. The cover subject, Fayette, Mississippi Mayor Charles Evers was an example of the ingenuity and determination needed to run black-owned businesses such as the Medgar Evers Shopping Center, named in honor of his late brother, a prominent civil rights leader slain by an assassin in 1963.

The cover of the collector’s edition August 2010 40th Anniversary Issue of Black Enterprise features…