about us

Ujamaa Market is the online store for Ujamaa Deals, featuring products from Black-owned companies.  Ujamaa Deals is a daily deals site and online store that features products from Black-owned companies.  By signing up, you will receive emails with these deals that will not only expose you to great Black-owned companies, but will also give you a discount as an added incentive to support them.  One of the major excuses for not supporting Black-owned companies is not being able to find them.  Ujamaa Deals will help eliminate this excuse first with national deals from Black businesses that can sell their products/services online, and then by launching local deals in various cities with large Black populations like Atlanta, DC, Chicago, LA, Philadelphia, New York, etc.

Ujamaa Deals was founded to directly combat the chronic unemployment plaguing the Black community.  No community that spends over 90% of its money with businesses that they don’t own will EVER achieve political, social, cultural, or economic equality or independence!

The idea behind Ujamaa Deals is very simple.  The real unemployment rate in the Black community is over 20%, with some estimates as high as 30%, and these numbers are not improving.  It is a fact that Black-owned business are more likely to hire Black people than non-Black-owned businesses (about 85% more likely actually).  Blacks currently spend less than 10% of their money with Black-owned businesses.  So it became obvious to us that the most efficient way to combat Black unemployment is to re-direct more Black dollars to Black businesses in order to help them grow, and when they grow they’ll need to hire more people, and those people are likely to be Black.  So by spending money with Black-owned businesses we are creating wealth and jobs for ourselves and decreasing our dependence on others for goods and services.

Now obviously this realization is nothing new.  People have been launching “Buy Black” campaigns and Black business directories for years.  But these initiatives have been pretty ineffective.  By taking advantage of the daily deals model that many people are already familiar with, we can use this proven tool for a greater purpose….Black Economic Empowerment.  We think this is the missing element that can finally bring Black consumers and Black businesses together.

The most powerful votes are the dollars we spend. By spending money with companies that destroy the environment, you are voting for the destruction of the environment. By buying from companies that exploit/oppress people in their manufacturing operations, you are voting for the continuation of those destructive practices. You can’t say, “I don’t agree with what you’re doing, but here, take my money.” If you want Black people to have full employment and not have to rely on the government or majority-owned corporations for our financial well-being, you have to vote for it with your dollars by supporting Black companies and independent Black institutions.

-Ujamaa Deals | Making it easy to Buy Black!