out as the new generation of Black business owners emerged—younger, better educated, and with more managerial and supervisory experience. And these new owners relied, to a great extent, on public-sector markets. For the first time, a significant number of Black businesses emerged in large-scale, public-works construction contracting and subcontracting, architectural and engineering services, management and consulting services, data processing, computer sales and services, public relations, and other industries closely tied to public-sector procurement opportunities. These opportunities, in turn, expanded the diversification, revenue sources, and employment capacity of Black-owned businesses.

By the 1980s, obtaining public-sector contracting and procurement was a fundamental business strategy for a significant portion of successful minority business owners, because public-sector affirmative-action programs afforded minority entrepreneurs substantial growth and revenue opportunities. In 1987, Black-owned firms with revenues of $1,000,000 or more earned 12.8 percent of their gross revenue from the public sector, while nonminority male-owned businesses of a similar size earned only 6.1 percent of their revenue from such sources (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1991:204); for firms with revenues between $500,000 and $999,999, percentages of revenue from the public sector were 9.3 percent for Black-owned and 5 percent for nonminority male-owned businesses.

In 1995, I mailed a survey to 1,412 businesses owned by ethnic minorities and White women located in the Atlanta metropolitan area to