Document Type

Article

Publication Date

Spring 2020

Abstract

When the average person thinks about African American history, the two major historical subjects that possibly comes to their mind are slavery and the civil rights movement. I believe this is the case because African American history is a subject with a limited curriculum in the history classes of our public schools. Possible causes for this problem could be budget restrictions, limited amounts of time in classes, or even to ‘soften’ the reality of American history. Despite these reasons, the undeniable fact is that African American History has many unresearched areas within the subject. For instance, the historical study of African American owned businesses is a topic that has been given little attention to. That is why I decided to research the life of G. William Bouldin, a San Antonio based businessman who became a prominent role model for the San Antonio African American community during the early 1900s. Many Black business owners, like Bouldin, fought against injustices created towards their people and utilized the resources from their businesses to benefit their community in their own way. By sharing the life story of Bouldin, I prove that San Antonio's black business leaders were more than just businesspeople and Bouldin’s accomplishments influenced San Antonio’s black community tremendously.

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