In the driveway at 906 Apperson Way N. — a building flanked by three churches — sits a late model, brown two-tone Ford van.

Earl Davis owns the van. He doesn’t drive it.

The van sits in the driveway of Davis Beauty and Barber Salon, reminding him who he is and what he is: A hard-working, black businessman.

“When I started this back in 1974, I went to the bank and they wouldn’t give me a loan for the business, but I went upstairs and they gave me a loan for the van. I had to cash out an insurance policy for $500 to start my business,” said Davis, who is also a barber contractor for Indiana’s Department of Juvenile Corrections.

“I’ve been in Kokomo since 1966. I’ve seen a lot of [black] businesses come and go. It’s hard out here. I want to help others get their own. The economy affects you. Guys would want to start a business, but when the factories were hiring, you couldn’t blame them for leaving and going where they could get benefits.

“There were other [black] businesses in the area when I started. Now, all that is left on this street is me, a couple of churches and a couple of other [barber] shops.”

WHERE ARE BLACK BUSINESSES?

According to national and state statistics, the lack of black-owned businesses isn’t that startling, in Kokomo or in the U.S.

The Indiana Business Research Center in Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business recently released a business/jobs snapshot of blacks in Indiana.

Revenues for all U.S. black-owned businesses totaled $88.6 billion in 2002 (the most recent data available), compared to almost $1.7 million in revenues generated in Indiana.

Furthermore, nearly 1.2 million black-owned businesses existed in 2002 with 14,056 (1.2 percent) of those located in Indiana.

The statistics for black-owned businesses pale in comparison to white-owned businesses.

In their recent study, “Race and Entrepreneurial Success: Black, Asian and White-Owned Businesses in the United States,” University of California Santa Cruz economic professor Rob Fairlie and research associate Alicia Robb used data from the U.S. Census Bureau to reveal these trends with U.S. black-owned businesses:

• In the U.S., more than one in 10 workers, or 13 million people, are self-employed. Those 13 million account for 37.4 percent of the wealth in the U.S.

• Only 5.1 percent of blacks own their own businesses compared to 11 percent of whites.

Although blacks have made significant gains in political and educational venues, the gains have been less than modest when it comes to owning their own businesses.

The research duo attributed the low entrepreneurial level in black communities to blacks having limited access to start-up capital — half of black families do not have assets exceeding $6,200 — and black businesses typically are smaller and less successful than white businesses.

“Low rates of business ownership among African Americans have persisted over the entire 20th century, and recent trends indicate that racial disparities in business-ownership rates will not disappear in the near future,” the report stated.

“Businesses owned by minorities tend to be smaller and less successful than non-minority-owned businesses ... [black-owned] have lower profits and higher closure rates than those owned by whites. For example, white-owned firms have average annual sales of $439,579 compared with $74,018 for black-owned firms.”

FIRST IN A CITY OF FIRSTS

Before she moved to Kokomo from Milwaukee in the early 1990s, Sandra Bush already knew what her vocation would be when she arrived.

She knew it when she was a child combing her father’s hair.

“I was 7,” Bush said, “and I knew right then I wanted to own my own beauty shop when I grew up.”

She owned her first salon at age 21.

“It was so exciting to be young and having my own business,” said Bush, who credits her parents in supporting her dream and now owns Sandra D Salon of Beauty, 102 N. Main St., in downtown Kokomo.

Sandra D is a full-service multicultural salon for men and women. Bush is expanding the salon to house a boutique featuring custom-made jewelry. She also has a massage therapist on staff.

“I’ve been blessed. I’ve been able to fund this on my own,” she said. “I’ve never taken out a loan. I don’t owe a bank anything. As a black businesswoman, that was the best way for me to go.”

At her downtown location, Bush is neighbors with two black-owned businesses — Isreal Affordable Fashions and Vital Support Health Alliance — and the minority-owned Baja Burritos.

And when she first opened downtown, Bush lived up to Kokomo’s nickname.

“l really believe when I first got here, I was the first [black] business downtown. It wasn’t a hard decision because there wasn’t another salon downtown and I knew there would be clientele,” said Burns. “It wasn’t hard, but you have to have drive, personality and faith. To be successful, you have to have the right people come to you at the right time. That’s why I came downtown. It feels great!”

However, what would be better, she adds, is seeing more black-owned businesses in Kokomo, and not necessarily more service-industry jobs that are typically held by black business people.

• K.O. Jackson is the Kokomo Tribune’s business writer. He can be reached at 765-854-6739 or via e-mail kirven.jackson@kokomotribune.com