A Year of Buying Black (Part 1) from Be BOLD Branding

A Year of Buying Black (Part 1)

21 minutes Posted Feb 18, 2026 at 1:00 pm.

Maggie Anderson’s Roots: Liberty City, Immigrant Parents, and a Call to Activism

Mentors & Milestones: John Lewis, Barack Obama, and Corporate Leadership

The Anniversary Dinner That Sparked the Empowerment Experiment

From One Month to One Year: Making the Experiment Public & Credible

Finding Essentials, Building a Directory, and Getting Resourceful

Community Pushback, Missing Infrastructure, and Businesses Closing

A Mother’s Blessing, Finishing the Year, and Closing Reflections

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What would happen if one family committed to exclusively supporting black-owned businesses for an entire year? Meet Maggie Anderson, CEO and co-founder of The Empowerment Experiment Foundation, who turned that bold question into reality in 2009. An Emory and University of Chicago graduate who studied constitutional law under Barack Obama, Maggie documented her family's groundbreaking journey in her book Our Black Year: One Family's Quest to Buy Black in America's Racially Divided Economy. Through her activism, speaking, and leadership, she challenges communities to recognize economic empowerment as a pathway to equity—revealing the obstacles, opportunities, and transformative power of intentional spending within underserved communities.

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