Who Killed the Black Businessman?

By Richard Bryant

This book is about a young man coming to age back in the sixties, when Black men wore Afros and dashikis. We have just realized how important allies really were, no more mopping floors and working in the auto factories. We were going to be business owners, and no one could imagine what was in store for us—the burning down of my brother’s nightclub, a fight for my life, and my mother hanging on for dear life as my brother’s nightclub went up in flames. The opening of my photo lab was the biggest photo finishing plant the Kodak I’ve ever seen; that was owned by a Black man, hundreds of accounts from Los Angeles to Beverly Hills, but the robbers didn’t care. The police could not protect me; my employee respects life, going to work every day. This was the fight of my life; could you imagine coming to work finding your mother beat down in the store? I had to defend myself and my employees; it was a tale. Was it worth it? The dead bodies in the alley, my wife having no idea of what I was going through every day. My kids did not care; they only saw that I was never there.

Get the insight of what it meant to be a Black business owner in the sixties. Everyone talked about a Black business owner getting a free ride with business loans from the SBA, but they never knew the truth. I still wake up at night in cold sweats, thinking about what I have been through. Was it all worth it?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781662457197

Richard Bryant

Richard Bryant was Deputy Field Director on the British Academy Carthage Project from 1974-1978. He worked at Sutton Publishing from 1983 and since 1996 has been a Director of Past Historic.

Book preview

cover.jpg

Who Killed the

Black

Businessman?

Richard Bryant

Copyright © 2021 Richard Bryant

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-6624-5718-0 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-5719-7 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

This novel is about the death of Black business owners and the coming of age of a family headed by a seventeen -year-old boy. As we watch a young man’s journey—all of his experiences in the sixties and the creation of a family in the seventies—and as we watch this elderly man in 2014, sitting here in the window, at this place and time, he wonders could his life have been better? Could he have dealt with racism and turmoil better? Just sitting here on his computer, looking out the window, writing a screenplay creates turmoil in the neighborhood. All of the crime and suffering that he is watching in front of him the neighborhood watch scenes to have a problem with a black man sitting in the window on a computer? That’s a blast from the past when they did not want Black people to learn how to read; that is the situation that exists today. The elderly man begins to question his past judgment. Was everything that happened to him his fault? Was it all worth it? What he’s left with in 2014? He’s a sixty-eight-year-old man living in an apartment building with drug dealers on both sides of his residence. As he looks out his window, he sees a person in a gray Cadillac with his baseball cap turned to the side. He’s a drug dealer, that’s for sure. His drug dealing must be very profitable because he had upgraded to a flatbed GMC champagne gray truck. The girl in the apartment below, with her blond hair and little kit, is selling drugs out of her window; there are at least three families that live there. Everyone in the apartment building is involved in some type of credit card fraud. But a Black man on his computer is more threatening than any other crime that is going on in the neighborhood. But the neighborhood watch is the most fearful of them all because there are racists. Their ultimate goal is to see you dead!

My character is trying to explain to his kids. His reasoning for the way he conducted his life. Not just to make money for himself or his immediate family but to make life better for the generations of his family members yet to come such as his granddaughter and his great grand kids. So they never would have to work.

When you are reading this nova, some people might think that the character of my story is selfish in the way he conducted his life. My character believes if you do not organize your life in a way that provides security for the generations to come. This is really selfish! I look at my kids and see their reluctance to think about future generations. So what if you have created a decent life for yourself, is that enough? How selfish can you be? What a waste of life. They have a chance to change the world. They certainly can change the future of their family members so that they do not have to suffer the perils of poverty.

We look back to the past. See how this young Black man navigates his way through life’s experiences with his physical handicaps and his like of education. All of these events lead to tragedy and death—the rise and fall of a Black business owner and the sexual impasse that are forced upon him even though sex was his main power. But it drives him to the immorality of his life. The title who killed the Black businessmen suggests a life-and-death struggle. It is a great reading experience and a reflection on everyone’s life experiences. Trying to figure out when your life will change or looking back at your life, trying to figure out, what point in time your life changed for the better or worse?

In 2013, I was starting to encounter people from my past! When I would talk to them, I realized that their recollection of me was really distorted. Maybe that was the reason I wrote this story. Fifteen years after I closed my great photo lab and after all the tragedy and lust, that had happened to me in my past! That great venture that created a battle of life and death that you will read about. I was still trying to open a business. I had a photography studio in Hollywood. I was the only Black photographer. I took Head Shots of expiring actors; some became big-time celebrities today. I also shot model’s books, passport photos. Over five thousand passport photos in ten years, on blue background, red background, it did not matter; it was just another $10 in the till. That seems simple enough, but was it?

This was right around the time of 911. The hijackers from Saudi Arabia had just destroyed the twin towers in New York. The country was in a state of panic! The FBI had found out that the hijackers had boarded the planes with California driver’s licenses. Quite naturally, they wanted to find out how the hijackers obtain these driver’s licenses. So they began to backtrack the hijacker’s movements. The FBI thought maybe the hijackers had obtained forged driver’s license or something like that? So the FBI began to investigate every photographer’s studio in California that took passport photos on blue backgrounds.

Just about that time, I was having some problems getting my telephone cut on because of my bad credit. So I had a friend cut on my telephone in his name! That was a big mistake. I did not know that the driver’s license he used was not in his name. He had obtained a forged driver’s license. If that was not bad enough, he began to open up credit cards using my business address and phone number with his forged driver’s license. I began to receive phone calls from the credit card companies regarding payment. My friend had disappeared and left me holding the bag! But the credit card companies had not disappeared! They would call me ten times a day every day demanding for payment. They had contacted the police department! Somehow the FBI became interested in me. I did not know it at the time, but the next twelve years of my life would be some type of psychological torture.

I do not know if you have seen the movie The Matrix ? In that movie, the main character, Neil, was given a choice to take the red pill or blue pill. He was told if you take the red pill, you will see the world like it really is! I like Neil. I must have chosen the red pill because my life went down a rabbit hole! I first saw them in my rearview mirror! They were five cars strong! It was a surveillance force! Later on, I found out they were neighborhood watch fanatics. You know the kind with American flags on their cars. They had a contract from the police department and FBI to operate a surveillance team. There was a special on the TV about them. They had organized a mobile patrol of 250 cars to patrol the city of LA. They begin to follow me everywhere I went! Once they saw what stores I went to, they would contact the owner and tell them that I was a criminal! They would even follow me to my doctor’s office. They would sit in the waiting room with you. When I left the doctor’s office, they would leave to! Could the doctor be a part of this? Even today, when I go to the doctor, it is hard for me to believe what he’s telling me! One time, I went to the doctor; he was high on drugs or just crazy! He began to tell me that my nose was broken. I’d been punched in the face that I have been in a gang fight; I got up and left the doctor’s office and told the secretary to cancel my future appointments and prescription. That doctor was crazy! Later that evening, the real doctor called me and apologized for the person’s behavior. She explained to me that he was just filling in for her, and she would not charge me or report this to Medicare. I was experiencing a modern-day version of what my Black ancestors had experienced in the past when lynch mobs chased them down the street!

They’d begin to videotape my business. They would make videotapes of everyone that came in and out! The neighborhood watch even hired ten homeless drug dealers to sit in front of my business in portable picnic chairs! Years later, the same drug dealers killed a tourist on Hollywood Boulevard. These were the type of homeless individuals I was dealing with on a daily basis. They would harass my customers! One time, I confronted one of the homeless drug dealers; it led to a big street fight! I had to beat him off me with a pipe! How could you run a business with this type of activity going on in front of your store? These were the sort of things that the neighborhood watch did. They would harass Black business owners in order to get them out of their neighborhood! No other business owners had to go through this type of harassment!

I went to my telephone box in the rear of my business because my internet was not working. The telephone repairmen had left a message in the box stating that the FBI was here! They had wiretapped my telephone. I had purchased a house in Las Vegas then I leased it out; I had told the property management that there were individuals