It’s clear that over the past 40 years, black businesses have grown more rapidly and into a wider array of industries, from tech and food services to engineering and financial services, than at any previous time in American history. This is due in part to barriers to capital, corporate contracts and government contracts being lowered or eliminated by anti-discrimination legislation and equal opportunity efforts as a result of the triumphs of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, and the subsequent election of African-American mayors in major cities in the 1970 and 1980s (most notably, Mayor Maynard H. Jackson, Jr. in Atlanta).