Roy Douglas Malonson, chairman of the
African-American Chamber of Commerce
of Greater Houston, greets then City-Controller
Annise Parker at a chamber-sponsored event. 
Mayor Parker has agreed to be the guest speaker
at the chamber’s annual awards banquet.

This year, the African-American Chamber of Greater Houston celebrates 21 years of service to the African-American community. More than 400 people will gather at the annual banquet, where Houston Mayor Annise Parker will be the guest speaker.

The chamber, organized in 1989, was originally named the Acres Homes Citizens Chamber of Commerce, came as the result of a desire to create a better place for the seemingly forgotten residents of Acres Homes community in the city of Houston. In fact, it was birthed out of a movement.

“It was a culmination of a lot of things. The Acres Homes chamber of commerce was the second or third thing. Acres Homes had become nationally known as one of the drug capitols of the world.

It was so bold out here that there was total disrespect with the drug dealers. They were everywhere,” said Roy Douglas Malonson, chairman and co-founder of the chamber. Other founders were the late Thelma Lastrap, Rep. Sylvester Turner and Atty. Thomas Jones, Jr.

“We decided that we needed to take back our neighborhood; we started the first wars on drugs movement in the country called the Acres Homes War on Drugs. We looked at it as a developers approach. What do developers do? The first thing they do, they pick a safe environment. Then the next thing they do is they look at the educational mechanisms. Safe environment and good schools draw people. We didn’t have any of those components because it had all vanished since desegregation.
“Basically, we told the drug dealers, just respect us. We understand the way the system is with Black folks, we understand. But we got to live together. How do we co-exist?”

Once the streets of the small community were safe, the movement’s leaders decided they needed a “strong mechanism voice” and that’s when they created the Acres Homes Citizen’s Chamber of Commerce.
“It was the first community-based chamber in the state of Texas, in the country,” Malonson said. “Hundreds of them copied our model. When we started, there were like 26 chambers in Harris County, now there are 500, because everybody copied after us. It was a good model. And from that the chamber became an advocate for businesses.”

Among those who have benefitted from the chamber is Dr. Janice Carruthers, an internist who has been in practice for over 10 years.
“When I was a kid about 14-years-old, my best friend went to St. Pius High and I went to Mt. Carmel High School. Both of them were private schools. She actually lived in Acres Homes and she would often tell me that some of her neighbors didn’t have running water, [and] just describe some of the poverty of the area,” said Dr. Carruthers who lived in southeast Houston as a youth.

“I was just amazed that a community like that could exist. When I would come to visit her, I was amazed at how people just had to survive from day to day. And so that’s where I got my interest in Acres Homes. I had always wanted to become a doctor and I said, ‘If I am ever able to become a physician, I would love to come back to this community to help the people of Acres Homes.”

Carruthers remembered her vow and decided to open an office just outside of Acres Homes at 7929  N. Shepherd. But she ran into a roadblock with Reliant Energy.
“I had been back in Houston for about 10 years. About a year ago, I was in the process of building my commercial building right here on Shepherd and I ran into a situation where I was having a lot of resistance with the electric company actually turning my electricity on and so I got on the phone and talked to a lot of my friends. Mr. Goodwill Pierre turned me on to Carmen Watkins and I joined the association. She helped me get my lights on in a matter of 24 hours and I have been loyal to them [the chamber] ever since.”

Carruthers is not only a beneficiary. She is a supporter. “I even talked to Carmen about some of the projects they’re involved in and I would like to be a resource outside of medicine, like Habitat for Humanity, helping people build homes, helping to pick up some of the trash that’s in the community, things like that. You know I’m real excited about this.”

Carruthers is among those expected to attend this year’s banquet. That’s one of the ways people like her can give back. The banquet is the chamber’s major fundraiser, helping to secure much-needed funds in order to continue services aimed at empowering Houston’s African-American up and coming business owners and residents.

The 21st Annual Awards Banquet will be held, Saturday, March 6 at 7:30p.m. It will be held at the Crowne Plaza Northwest, 12801 Northwest Frwy.  Guest speaker is Mayor Annise Parker.

Ozzie Ilaboya is one of those up and coming entrepreneurs. A physicist in the oil industry for many years, Ilaboya had always dreamed of running his own business as his father did in Nigeria. In fact, he says it was the reason he came to America.

 “The company I was with was having financial issues for the past two or three years. And when the recession came it really hit them hard. Basically, they lost all of their projects. So, it became I was just going to work and not doing anything. I felt like since I was just going to work and doing nothing and feeling guilty… I left the company,” he said.

But finding a new job has not been easy. So far, he has applied for over 300 positions, but only one of them has called him back—the Army. Ilaboya has survived on his savings and unemployment.

He decided to be proactive. Instead of waiting for a job to open up, he is working toward his dream. Ilaboya decided to pursue a business providing remote security monitoring. He is also developing technology for home and office monitoring. The chamber is helping him lay the groundwork for his business through their Individual Development Account program that helps entrepreneurs develop their business plan.

But entrepreneurs are not the only ones benefitting from the program. Natasha Riley-White is a senior social work major at Texas Southern University. She works with the chamber as part of her field instruction, the internship portion of her degree program, intended to provide hands on training that enables students to see how direct care practices are implemented.

She handles intake, job readiness training, and conflict resolution training. She also works with the youth providing job training and interviewing techniques. She has seen how the chamber impacts the community.

“I get to see hands-on what it’s like from development to actually establishing a rapport with people in the community, learning how to hear what the needs are in order to apply for services for them to address those needs,” she said.

“Most of the people that come here come feeling kind of hopeless, but I see the way that the team shows that they are truly concerned and tries to make sure they have the tools that they need. Once they get the tools they need, they feel motivated to do something different. That really stood out to me because I live in the community and I’m a first hand witness to what’s going on here. But I really didn’t expect to see that at the agency when I first got here.”

The chamber has worked with legislators and a variety of agencies to help African-Amercan businesses to grow. Mayor Parker has expressed a desire to continue to work with the chamber toward this end.

“The African-American Chamber of Commerce of Greater Houston is a dynamic and growing organization.  This is the reason I accepted the invitation to speak at the chamber’s annual banquet.  It is my goal that all of our communities have the same access to city services and equal opportunity to compete for city business,” she said.

 Malonson continued, “Now we got good schools, safe environment, houses being built all over the place and it’s very attractive for business. It was a master plan. But you had to work with what you have, don’t worry about what you don’t have.”

The chamber continues to meet the needs of the community, but it is only as strong as those who support it. Without the funds derived from functions like the annual banquet, services offered each year would be almost impossible to provide.
For more information, call (713)692-1100.