MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Tami Sawyer organized her first protest as part of the Black Lives Matter movement in the fall of 2014, after a Ferguson, Missouri police officer who shot 18-year-old Michael Brown wasn’t indicted by a grand jury.
Sawyer’s activism didn’t end with the criminal justice system. The 33-year-old has become an advocate for African American consumers spending dollars with African American-owned businesses, rekindling an idea her parents’ generation would find familiar.
“I don’t think it’s a widespread idea,” Sawyer said. “With integration, we lost that natural support of our businesses when we didn’t need them anymore. We forgot that they also needed us, so a lot of black businesses crumbled.”
But Sawyer, who is director of diversity and leadership at Teach for America in Memphis as her day job, is attempting to link African American consumers and businesses using 21st century means, a website called Power Box (ourpowerbox.com).
The website includes a database of about 900 black-owned businesses from around the country, Sawyer said. She estimated that 10 to 20 percent are in Memphis. A large number are in the nation’s capital, reflecting the 10 years she lived there as a contractor for Navy leadership and diversity, she said.