On March 5, 1969, President Richard Nixon kept an important campaign promise by issuing an Executive Order that created the Office of Minority Business Enterprise. Although this agency’s subsequent performance on behalf of nonwhite entrepreneurs generated decidedly mixed reviews, it could point to some concrete accomplishments. For instance, in 1969, there were 24 minority banks in the U.S. with total assets of $270 million. Five years later, there were 70 minority banks in the U.S. with assets of $1.3 billion.
In 1979, the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, which administratively operated within the Commerce Department, was renamed the Minority Business Development Agency, with an expanded mission of ensuring that nonwhite firms were adequately represented in growing high-tech industries.
During the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, not only was the budget of the Minority Business Development Agency enhanced, but Reagan also declared that the first week of October would be designated as “Minority Enterprise Development Week.”
Considering this history, Donald Trump’s desire to dismantle the Minority Business Development Agency is a repudiation of traditional Republican beliefs regarding the importance of promoting free enterprise in American society. Perhaps Trump’s thinking dismisses programs to assist nonwhite entrepreneurship as just another DEI initiative.
