And the death of Jonny Gammage at the hands of suburban police and the fatal police shooting of motorist Deron Grimmitt have stung the region, linking it in the national spotlight with the charge of racism.

Not too long ago, however, the name Pittsburgh conjured an image of prosperity, respect and culture in the minds of many black Americans.

Good jobs abounded, and the Hill District was a swinging center of culture. When Dodger pitcher Don Newcombe became the fourth black player to break into the major leagues, he found Pittsburgh to be the most welcoming of all the U.S. cities where he played.

"You didn’t ever hear people yelling racial epithets at you in the park in Pittsburgh," he recalled in a 1994 interview. "The people and the ball team were pretty damned nice to us. In the early years, when we really needed somebody to help give us a chance to play ball on our merits and not our skin color, the Pittsburgh fans were at the top of the list, in my opinion."

What needs to happen to bring Pittsburgh back to the top of the list in the minds of blacks in Pittsburgh and across the nation? To find out and to look into the local economy from a black perspective, we assembled a panel of black business people for this edition’s Roundtable Discussion: dancer Nicole Allison, Allegheny County Minority Business Enterprise Director Louis "Hop" Kendrick, vending cart entrepreneur Don Patterson, developer and insurance executive Irvin Williams and publisher Ola Jackson.

They begin by introducing themselves and their businesses while discussing Pittsburgh’s willingness to accept and grow black entrepreneurs. They also touch on topics of loneliness, isolation, racism and resistance to change. But they also find reason for hope.

Patterson: I’m from Cleveland, and I moved here in 1985. Currently I’m a residential manager of a home for mentally retarded children in Highland Park, and I’m also an entrepreneur. We make vendor carts, the kiosks that go in malls.

I see business opportunities for African Americans. The way I started my business is I made one cart. Took that money and made another one. It wasn’t difficult. I saw a product that’s needed. I saw the current laws were going to be changed. I saw an opportunity. In our community, the lack of economic development is the major factor in all of our social ills. As the kids say, ‘ It’s all about the Benjamins.’ You address the employment problems through business ownership. I see that as the major problem. If you don’t have ownership, you don’t control your own community.

Williams: I’m a lifelong resident of the Hill District. I grew up in my famous redbrick city, which we call the projects. My business is financial services. And my goal was to bring that to our community, help try to change the landscape of a generation. The Hill is an excellent place to be. I can get anywhere in the city and suburbs in 10-15 minutes, and I mean the airport too, if there’s no state trooper. The city has chosen to go across the river for its expansion instead of choosing the Hill District. I perceive that was a plan by design.

Kendrick: My background is a little unique. Strong two-parent family. My father was an entrepreneur. Went into business in 1932 during the Depression. Did good. I was able to educate three daughters. Two had to leave town. One’s a successful attorney in D.C. One’s an engineer in Jersey. One’s a vice principal at Reizenstein Middle School. Took an interest in politics 50 years ago. Thought it would provide a vehicle to elevate my people. Was a Republican for 27 years. Left nothing went to nothing. Joined the Democratic party about 20 years ago. Was a driving force in Dunn and Cranmer’s campaign. I was hired as director of Allegheny County’s Department of Minority Business Enterprise.

What I inherited was so atrocious and dismal that if anyone had told me that the picture was that bad in this county, I would not have believed it. The Minority Business program was founded in 1981. From 1981-96, it had never awarded a contract. Never. This county spends $527 million every 12 months, not including salaries. Not just black people, white people didn’t share in it. The same good old boys sat at the table. We sent out 350 bids a month. I’ve asked my staff why we did not participate in purchasing. They said, ‘We’re not allowed.’ Can you believe that? We went to purchasing and were told, ‘We don’t know any black vendors. Find us some.’ And we did.

There have been two very difficult mindsets to change. Those who sat in the seat of power said to me, ‘We will not allow you to change it.’ And those minorities who said, ‘It can’t be changed.’ I went to Dunn and Cranmer said to them what I’m saying to you. They said, ‘You have authorization to do your job. Do whatever it takes.’ We’ve done well.

We went from zero to $26 million. I used to criticize my predecessors, until I realized how difficult it was for them to do anything. My situation was different. I’m 67. My kids are grown. They can’t scare me. I do my job. Other people want to do the job, but cannot. They have children to educate. And it’s very difficult to stand up and be counted.

All I’m here for is for my grandkids and my children to feel about me the way I feel about my father. My father was the greatest man that ever lived. I do nothing but my job. I take no prisoners. And we have done well. Traveled a long, long road. The politicians are hypocrites. They say the right thing, but they don’t do anything.

If they had done their job, Plan B wouldn’t even be a question today. It’s very simple. All the commissioners and the mayor had to do is say, ‘We’re going to spend a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money. Do you want to share in it? If you do, this is what you must do.’ And it would have been done.

The law says you have to give up 15 percent [of the contracted government work to minorities]. Do we get the 15 percent and you get 85, or do we make it so you don’t get anything? Everybody would take the 85 percent. We have come a long way. I believe we can share in Plan B.

Those minority business enterprises who have done all right, they’re going to sit at the table. We have about 10 minority contractors that did about $5 million last year. It’s no money in the scheme of things, but in the minority community, it’s a lot of money. All of these guys will share in Plan B. Others, I have very serious questions whether they’ll participate.

These major contractors are in a hurry to build. And they don’t have time to train these people, and they shouldn’t have to worry about that. I said to them, ‘Why don’t you take those individuals who have demonstrated they have a place at the table and elevate them to the next level? Let them worry about the stragglers.’

I don’t ask you to give me anything because I’m black. I ask you not to deny me because I’m black. I would be the last person in the world to ask you to hire someone who’s incompetent, because that’s a reflection on me and mine. But I do ask you to afford me an opportunity. If I’m competent and black, give me a chance.

I’ve helped every enterprise that’s come to my office in the last three years. People who call me on the telephone asking for help, I hang up on ‘ em. Because if you don’t think enough of what you’re trying to sell to come sell it to me, I don’t care about you. We talk about how bad Allegheny County is, and it’s not really a consolation, but I tell people, ‘the grass is no greener on the other side of the street.’ The problem we have here is a universal problem. It’s bad all over.

Jackson: I started a newsletter for black women. It was eight pages. Well, we found that as a result of going through our data base that the women we were targeting were not the women who were subscribing. So we had to go national.

For our business, we went to advertisers. They usually told us they had no money in their budget. We were told that often. We had intended to become a national magazine, but down the road. But we had to do that earlier, because we were not getting the business locally. When it comes to growing your business, that’s when you have an issue. Because you have to have a business relationship with the corporations in this city. If you don’t, you will not survive. I need to form a relationship with other companies.

This is a city and a country where they feel comfortable excluding us. And they can do it. There’s not a big accountability factor for some company to say, ‘Yes we suck the life out of your community, but we don’t feel obligated to hire you and so what.’ and I think everybody here might agree.

Our ancestors worked their behinds off involuntarily to build this country. We deserve everything we can get.

Allison: In our community, Pittsburgh is filled with negative people, trying to hold you back. You have to be very ambitious and have drive. I do not take no for an answer.

I grew up and live on the Hill. I grew up in a project. I didn’t really socialize much there. I didn’t keep myself in that realm. I knew there was more to life and Pittsburgh. I ventured out. What I could not do, I read about.

Anything that I’m interested in, I’ll read about it first. I was on welfare. I had a child young. I tried juggling college and work, both full time. I had a nervous breakdown.

I was majoring in English education at the University of Pittsburgh, and I got caught up in using that degree for self esteem. I thought, ‘If I have a degree I’ll feel better about myself.’ And when I couldn’t get that and I was working so hard, it took a toll on me. I felt like I couldn’t do anything and wasn’t worth much.

I was afraid to get off of welfare. Without a degree, what kind of job can I get? What’s going to put the food on the table? And the medical? If I was going to go out and get a minimum wage job, I would have ended up getting less than I had on welfare.

So I did a lot of little jobs, working at stores, under the table. This was when I was in school. I couldn’t chance gettin’ cut off while I was in college.

I tried a lot of things. Fast money. Not illegal things. But fast money comes and goes fast. I went through a difficult time. I moved out of the projects and into Crawford Square. When I grew up, I wasn’t allowed to go outside. And I didn’t want my daughter to be raised like that, so I moved out of the projects. In ‘97 I started a dance program at the Hill House. Just to get a little money. I was trying to get back in school. Even now, with a bachelor’s degree, you’re just getting into recep tionist positions. I said, ‘Well Pittsburgh don’t have anything for me. I don’t have a social life. And it’s not for black people.’ I was determined to move to California. I wanted to act or model. I went to all the modeling agencies here. I couldn’t get into any. It’s all in who you know. But if I don’t have the means to get somewhere to get to meet somebody, I’m not going to know anybody.

I decided to do the dance program one more year. I visited California and got accepted into a modeling agency. I came back to Pittsburgh and was just going to stay enough to make money and then go. I decided I’d just stay and finish up with the children.

And then the next semester I got 95 kids. And I really battled with:

Should I stay or leave? I always wanted a dance school, but I also wanted to act and model.

I’d had to file bankruptcy when I was on welfare, and my credit was bad. I didn’t know anything about starting a business. But I do have God in my life, and he had given me a vision and told me to step out. So I started researching how to open a dance school. Frustrating, trying times. I suffered from depression. And that’s another thing that keeps you afraid, with negative feelings, constantly. But I got out there and went for loans. I went to a lot of minority programs that are supposed to help entrepreneurs. And other programs. ‘Oh why don’t you try the community center. You’re moving too fast.’

Despite the bankruptcy, I was able to get loans. I had a lot of problems, but I accomplished it.

I talk to a lot of young people and I tell them, ‘You have to believe in yourself, because nine times out of 10, nobody else will.’ My family was negative. They wanted to protect me. But sometimes we protect our people too much. We don’t want them to get hurt in the process of being denied. That’s a problem in the black community in Pittsburgh. People think of what they cannot have. It’s simply because they do not try. I thought of what I couldn’t have, but that was before I tried.

Q: What is the perception of Pittsburgh among blacks as a place to live and do business?

Kendrick: In theory, Pittsburgh should be the ideal place. We all know each other here. The real tragedy is how much blame we put on racism. Too many people let racism become a crutch. If we continue to stress what you don’t allow me to do, instead of what we can do if we want to do it, then we won’t move forward.

For instance, in the Democratic party, certain black groups say the party’s been bad to us. They did not endorse any black judges. That’s not the party’s problem, that’s our problem. We don’t have a think tank. We’re not raising money. Until we are able to recognize that there are certain things that we must do for ourselves, we’ll continue to have problems.

Pittsburgh’s bad. New York’s bad. Chicago’s bad. They’re all bad. But Pittsburgh has been exceptionally good to me. And to my family. I’ve never paid rent in my life. We’ve always been property owners. I get upset when I hear people tell me how bad it is. I don’t think any African American under 85 years old has any idea what racism is. To walk to a job and hear, ‘We ain’t hiring’ niggers today.’

The problems I’ve faced are nothing compared to what my father and grandfather faced. If these young people would take half the energy they use to criticize racism to eradicate racism, we wouldn’t have any problems.

Most of the people have no concept of what business is. They don’t know the difference between a CPA and the CIA. It’s depressing. They don’t have any experience around business. I grew up watching my father. But many of these people are first generation. That’s tough. First generation has never had any access to a bank, unless they worked there as a janitor. There was no way we had access to the lending department.

Someone in the Hill wanted to open a restaurant, and I said, ‘Based on what?’ He said, ‘People got to eat.’ There were five restaurants around the corner. He had no idea what a demographic study was. How many people would come past his restaurant. So a lot of us have no real concept of what it takes to be in business. We see it as a dream. It doesn’t work like that. Being in business is difficult.

Q: Do you have a feeling of loneliness, that you have nobody to talk to about business? Does that isolation contribute to the problem?

Williams: My initial problem was in the development arena. I had nobody to talk to. There were no African Americans who had done a commercial development in the city of Pittsburgh or Allegheny County. That was the tragedy of it. I was not known by anybody, and I was the first one. There was no African American to go to and say ‘Gee, man what am I supposed to do to build a commercial facility?’

To me it was bigger than life. An office complex. When it got built, I was looking out the window [to Downtown]. It was small. I’m looking at 42 stories and I’ve only got three.

I researched to see if there was anybody to help. I went to these agencies that are supposed to help minorities, but they didn’t have a track record of helping anyone in the arena I was in. I became totally isolated when I started to realize that this small, $1.3 million project was the biggest. And the day before we started to do this, nobody knew who I was. In Pittsburgh, African Americans who are of some caliber and some substance are supposed to be known. I wasn’t.

I drove down to the DoubleTree last month for the [National Association of Office and Industrial Properties] annual awards. I saw the emcee, an African American woman, who had asked me to come. There was another person from her staff. We were the only three African Americans in the whole auditorium in a sea of white folks. Now these were the folks doing Plan B, and the other commercial real estate deals in town. The contractors. The engineers.

What horrified me is that they asked me to become a member of this group. And I looked at the individual and I said, ‘ I can see with my eyes closed why you’re asking me this question.’

Patterson: I believe that we have to motivate and encourage. We have to start with young people. I’ve been involved in pioneering youth entrepreneur programs here. Like what Hop [Kendrick] did with me. We have a cart business with kids. I was referred to Hop about becoming a concessionaire at North Park. That’s been a nice contract. Hop helped me and hand-walked me through how to do this. Kendrick: Irvin [Williams] talked about going to the real estate meeting and he was one of three blacks there. White folks just don’t think about us, one way or the other. I don’t know if it’s racism. You just don’t think.

White realtors have allegiances. Nobody says, ‘ Well, find Irvin.’ They don’t think about Irvin. Many of these institutions, whether it’s the newspaper or financial institutions, if they hire a black at all, they have such a limited respect for black individuals that they’ll never take that person into their confidence.

For instance, we have three commissioners. Not one has an African American aide, someone they have the respect or rapport with. At the banks, if there is an African American individual who is there, he may have several degrees and graduate magna cum laude. But no bank president is going to call him and say, ‘What are we going to do with these African Americans who are applying for loans?’ The answer would be, ‘Well boss, you just keep doing what you been doing?’ He’s scared to death. And you don’t respect him enough to really value his opinion.

Allison: I at one time felt this was a racist city and wanted to run away from it. But I started dealing with it and used it as an advantage instead of a disadvantage. There are no other black dance schools I can call and get information from.

So I call the white schools. Dance Alloy, Civic Light Opera. I use their information and see how I can put it into the black community. Instead of going to black schools and seeing how they operate. That gives me an advantage. Having a black school in the black community, you may not know all there is to know or have all the resources.I’ll go to who has the resources, find out how they got it. Who’s on your board? Who’s your foundation?

I’ll go to all-white functions. And my being the only black is an advantage. Because they will remember. Even though I may be like a spot. Or I wasn’t invited. But they’ll remember my name. So then later, I’ll call them to follow up to see if they need anything. Even if they don’t then, there’ll come a time.

Yes it’s sad that I don’t have other black entrepreneurs I can call. But I hold a lot of blacks responsible, because they don’t pull each other up.

Williams: It’s still about your bringing your business back to your community. The icons of our youth are still not our business people. How do we help these young people? Spending time with them.

Patterson: The same energy we use to encourage our kids to go to college, we should put towards encouraging ownership. We need to set up these loans and encourage the programs. It sounds, Nicole [Allison], like you might have had a bad experience with some minority programs. Personally, I had a good experience with the Minority Enterprise Corporation. I went through the MBA program. I graduated.

The African American Chamber of Commerce used to exist basically on paper, now it’s getting more aggressive.

We need to reach the young people. And say, instead of just shooting for a doctor or lawyer, why don’t you try and start businesses. A lot of times I ask people why they want to start a business and they say they want to put it in the black community. I say you should want everybody’s money. It’s nice you want to help the community, but if you’re starving you haven’t helped anybody.

I’d want to move into Market Square and get your money and his money and her money. And then I can hire people.

Jackson: We have to much of just a survival mentality. There’s nothing wrong with prospering. We have to change that mindset and attitude. Blacks are always being told, ‘Things take time.’ When the powers that be want something done, it’s done fast.

Williams: The status quo is "It takes time."

Q: What needs to happen for Pittsburgh to again become a great place for black people to live and prosper?

Allison: We need to focus on our youth. If you ask a young person to compare today with 20 years ago, they can’t do it. They’re not learning about the struggle. It’s going to take time too work with them and develop their self esteem. We as a people need to help and teach these young people, first how to respect themselves, then show them what they can achieve. Plant the seed. They’ll grow. And then we can have more African American entrpreprenners. It will take time. But life isn’t stopping at us. There’s a yonger generation coming up.

Jackson: We have to become more organized ourselves. We need to have an agenda and collectively pursue a cohesive agenda with our political, community and cultural organizations. And address those issues, a lot of economic development issues. And hold those people accountable who are not in sync with our agenda.

Kendrick: The black church needs to move to the forefront. And I say the black church, because it’s the only entity in the black community that we own. We don’t own the Urban League and the NAACP. White folks pay the rent and keep the doors open. We need to take control of our future. I want to see Irvin build buildings as high as the DoubleTree. We can only do that when we sit at the table collectively together.

Williams: I manage money. I’m a personal financial analyst. I want to sit down and put enough money in a family so it will last for generations. Deliver back to my neighborhoods.

I want to rebuild the Hill District. I want to be able to say, ‘I made it in Pittsburgh.’

Patterson: There’s not a lot of competition here. There’s a lot of opportunity. The best thing I can do is be a successful business in order to give back to these young people. We need to showcase the people who are doing well. And show the young people the opportunities. Business is about profit. Own your own, and you can hire whoever you want.

PG Benchmarks Roundtable Participants

Louis "Hop" Kendrick is director of Allegheny County’s Minority Business Enterprise office. Formerly in the public defender’s office. Kendrick was appointed to his current post by Republican Commissioners Bob Cranmer and Larry Dunn, whom he campaigned for in 1996. As director of the county’s minority enterprise office, he ensures that government contracts meet required minority participation levels.

Irvin Williams is developer of Williams Square in the Hill District and owner of Irvin E. Williams & Associates, an insurance and financial services company. Williams Square is the first modern, multi-tenant office building in Pittsburgh to be built by an African American. He and his wife currently are planning a second office building in the Hill.

Nicole Allison is a dance instructor, aspiring model and owner of Visionary Performing Arts Academy in Friendship. Nicole is 25 years old. This is her first business. Formerly, she taught dance at the Hill House community center in the Hill. At the Visionary Performing Arts Academy, Allison teaches jazz, ballet, modern dance and African-American dance history to adults and children.

Ola Jackson is owner of Jackson Communications and publisher of Onyx Woman magazine. A former fashion model who completed a business degree in her spare time, Jackson runs a magazine targeted to African-American women entrepreneurs in western Pennsylvania. Circulation is 6,000. She wants Onyx to offer role models and business advice to black businesswomen.