A new monthly newspaper in Jackson aims to bring more attention to local businesses owned by people of color.
The Southside Business Chronicle is being distributed at 40 locations throughout Jackson and Albion, including convenience stores and restaurants. Its first edition came out earlier in June.
WKAR's Sophia Saliby spoke with the paper's editor Hakim Crampton about how the publication got started and its goal.
Interview Highlights
On where the paper is distributed
We're currently in 40 different locations between Jackson and Albion. Albion is a small city just right outside Jackson who frequently interacts with the city of Jackson, and so we're distributing right now 5,000 print issues between those 40 locations. And those 40 locations are, you know, our mom and pop stores all around the city, not just on the South side. They're actually between north, south, east and west. We even have stores in the mall that carry them, local boutiques downtown, restaurants, gas stations, your local convenience stores in the community.
On what readers can expect in each edition
They can expect to see vibrant stories about local businesses who people know about but just don't know how to access them, don't know when their hours of operation are, where they're actually located at and so they'll read these stories of business owners, of entrepreneurs, of their visions, of their ideas, of their business hours, of their sales that they have.
On how this paper aims to help the business community on Jackson's Southside
This community is beginning to blossom, re-blossom, I should say, as I said, it used to be a great community. Great businesses used to thrive here, and the '70s and '80s, particularly crack epidemic really hit this community's economy hard, and we've lost dozens and dozens of businesses. So, we really hope that this newspaper will really expand into every home, particularly on the Southside and all throughout the city and be a reliable source of information on how people can access our local businesses.
Interview Transcript
Sophia Saliby: A new monthly newspaper in Jackson aims to bring more attention to local businesses owned by people of color in the community.
Hakim Crampton is the editor of the Southside Business Chronicle, and he joins me now. Thank you for being here.
Hakim Crampton: Thank you for having me.
Saliby: Right now, we're seeing so many local media outlets disappearing across the country. So, why was now the right time to start a new paper?
Crampton: The Jackson community is a very small, tightknit community, and primarily, our community of color is located on the Southside, and this community is so closely connected that everyone regularly sees each other, frequents local businesses, and it's an easy place to really target each other and build relationships with each other, because we're not a large community like Detroit or Grand Rapids, for example.
It's easier to circulate information to one another, and so the newspaper was thought to be probably the best way to really reach everyone, particularly small-based businesses that are beginning to emerge on the Southside. This is a community that had, long ago, had a very blossoming Black economy in the '40s and '50s up until the '60s.
There's been a sizable gap here in our community for this very purpose, to support small entrepreneurs, particularly Black and minority-owned businesses, to give them an affordable opportunity to actually advertise and market themselves and their business.
This community, in fact, was a small Greenwood District, if you will, until the [Belden Road Urban Renewal Project], which sought to put a small highway right between our community. That road was called Airline Drive. It is now called Cooper Street, and it divided our Southeast neighborhood in half, which used to be a blossoming Black economic community.
Saliby: You've released your first edition. What has the response been so far?
Crampton: Oh, wow. It is absolutely been phenomenal. People are constantly saying, 'This is exactly what we've been needing.' They've been thanking me for doing such a thing in the community.
There's been a sizable gap here in our community for this very purpose, to support small entrepreneurs, particularly Black and minority-owned businesses, to give them an affordable opportunity to actually advertise and market themselves and their business. And this newspaper served to do just that.
Saliby: What does your distribution look like? So, where can folks pick up a paper?
Crampton: We're currently in 40 different locations between Jackson and Albion. Albion is a small city just right outside Jackson that frequently interacts with the city of Jackson, and so we're distributing right now 5,000 print issues between those 40 locations. And those 40 locations are, you know, our mom and pop stores all around the city, not just on the Southside. They're actually between north, south, east and west.
We even have stores in the mall that carry them, local boutiques downtown, restaurants, gas stations, your local convenience stores in the community, and they're moving pretty quickly.
I'm distributing about 20-30 papers in each of these locations, and every time I pull back up for redistribution, they're pretty much gone.
I'm doing distribution every single day. I'm distributing about 20-30 papers in each of these locations, and every time I pull back up for redistribution, they're pretty much gone.
Saliby: And what can people expect when they open up this paper to read?
Crampton: Yeah, they can expect to see vibrant stories about local businesses who people know about but just don't know how to access them, don't know when their hours of operation are, where they're actually located at, and so they'll read these stories of business owners, of entrepreneurs, of their visions, of their ideas, of their business hours, of their sales that they have, just a great opportunity to learn about entrepreneurs and businesses in our community.
Saliby: Looking ahead, what kind of impact do you want the paper to have? What does the future of the Southside Business Chronicle look like?
Crampton: It looks like, really, the continued expansion of the what's called the MLK corridor. The MLK corridor comes out of downtown and goes south near Vandercook Lake, and this community is beginning to blossom, re-blossom, I should say, as I said, it used to be a great community.
We really hope that this newspaper will really expand into every home, particularly on the Southside and all throughout the city and be a reliable source of information on how people can access our local businesses.
Great businesses used to thrive here, and the '70s and '80s, particularly crack epidemic really hit this community's economy hard, and we've lost dozens and dozens of businesses. So, we really hope that this newspaper will really expand into every home, particularly on the Southside and all throughout the city and be a reliable source of information on how people can access our local businesses.
Saliby: Hakim Crampton is the editor of the Southside Business Chronicle, a new monthly paper in Jackson. Thank you for joining me.
Crampton: Thank you for having me.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and conciseness.
