DURHAM – The conditions facing Durham’s small and Black businesses are “nightmarish,” according to the Greater Durham Black Chamber of Commerce.

In a presentation to Durham County Commissioners last month, GDBCC President and CEO CJ Broderick Jr. told commissioners in a work session that a stronger partnership between the city, county and the Black Chamber could change that nightmare into dreams.

The Greater Durham Black Chamber of Commerce is a nonprofit established in 2008 with the mission of supporting Black economic freedom, justice and prosperity. In 2022, the Chamber secured a $50,000 contract with Durham County to assist businesses with technical support, training, grant and loan opportunities, and more. Since then, the organization has hosted webinars, workshops and events, serving over 131 businesses in fiscal year 2026 so far.

The organization has identified key traits of the business climate specifically for Durham’s Black businesses. In January, Broderick told The Tribune the county commissioners has a “choice” to provide incentive packages in the millions to recruit enterprises to the area.

“The people that make that decision aren't always thinking about what's great for Black businesses,” he said. “One of the things we've been saying is that we want to be a part of that decision-making process.”

Broderick told commissioners at the work session that businesses are running into barriers of workforce development, a lack of access to recruitment and retention tools, and bringing potential partners to Durham, partially because they’re disconnected from Durham’s existing workforce development and economic development systems.

“Small businesses, especially Black businesses, have been relegated to being passengers and not drivers in Durham’s economic workforce development systems,” he said. There’s a lack of access to information and contracts. “They feel like they’re the last to know and first to go.”

This disconnect makes Black business owners feel relegated to certain “low-tier, low-pay, low-power and low-access” industries like cleanup rather than architecture and design, feasibility studies, etc.

Lastly, this dynamic has created a lack of trust in systems and policymakers among Black business owners and entrepreneurs, which has led to unfavorable or at least inadequate community benefits agreements in dealings from lawmakers.

“These are all connected,” Broderick said.

Broderick also reminded the commissioners that Durham’s most popular Black business community has been dismantled and not reestablished. Instead, the Black business community has observed a continued flow of capital to “punitive efforts like prisons and policing,” coupled with the increase in median income, which has subsequently led to the displacement of longtime, largely Black, residents.

“We’ve done a lot of research on this over the years,” Broderick said. “Disparity studies in 2013, 2022 and prior years confirmed that the efforts from city and the county to remediate remnants of discrimination have not been sufficient.”

Broderick said contracted expenditures fail to reach as little as 5% investment into Black-owned businesses.

Commissioner Nida Allam responded that, typically, there aren’t any other parties in confidential meetings between the county, the city attorney and potential enterprises, due to their “sensitive” nature.

Broderick countered that the Durham County Board of Commissioners has specifically chosen the Durham Chamber of Commerce to negotiate and be a part of some deals in the past.

“…and we don’t have any problem with that. They’re one of our partners, we love working with them,” Broderick said, “but that doesn’t get at the root of the problem around the allocation of power and really engaging different segments of our community in this work.”

Commissioner Wendy Jacobs asked for more data from the Black Chamber that tracks “improvement in outcomes of these businesses and growing economic development.” Jacobs also said the commissioners allocates funds to the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development specifically for small business development.

“It’d be helpful to understand what are existing programs that the city is operating on behalf of minority and small business development,” she said. North Carolina is the only state in the country that still lacks a budget, which affects everything else. Despite budgeting issues, Jacobs said she was interested in making sure Durham’s Black-owned businesses are made aware of opportunities for contracting.

“We want to have an ecosystem in Durham where everyone is at the table,” she said.

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