On the occasion of the nation’s 250th anniversary, Power Broker magazine is marking its own 20th anniversary with the publication of Tampa Bay Forward. The book is a sweeping anthology of data, stories and analysis looking at the experience of Black Americans in Tampa Bay.
Power Broker’s biggest project to date both in scope and length, Tampa Bay Forward includes essays by Tampa Bay community figures, industry leaders and innovators; economic, social, and political histories of Tampa Bay’s Black community; profiles of Black leaders from business, the arts and sports; and analyses of the last 50 years of the community’s growth and progress.
“I think that the mission of showing all that is good and positive and future focused and success oriented about the community is more important now than ever,” Power Broker Founder and Publisher Gypsy Gallardo told the Catalyst. “I think that vision and mission is fed by stories that help the mainstream community understand who we are, where we are, how we are moving.”
Tampa Bay Forward came about with three goals: To use data to cut through the “culture war” narrative around economic progress for Tampa Bay’s Black community; to positively profile change and change-makers; and to give birth to a “new vision for progress” 60 years after the Civil Rights Movement.
Gallardo’s decades of experience as a consultant in
economic equity have underpinned Power Broker since she founded it in 2005. Her day job provided financial support in the magazine’s infancy, allowing it to be a “passion project with a purpose” instead of revenue-driven; but it was the national and international insights she gleaned from her work promoting equitable economic development that drive the data-rich insights in Tampa Bay Forward.
Through it all she has worked to drive a perspective shift in how the media tells Black stories. “So much of our coverage of Black people and where they stand, especially economically, is deficit thinking,” she noted. “It’s about gaps. It’s about unfulfilled hopes and promises.
“Part of the focus of this edition was showing and celebrating, measurably, how much has changed and how far we’ve come, especially since the turn of the 21st century.”
Among what Gallardo calls the “woefully-underreported story of progress” are
- Tampa Bay’s #1 ranking for Black per capita income amongst Florida’s eight economic development regions;
- 145% real income growth for Black households since 2000;
- 265% growth in the aggregate net worth of Tampa Bay’s Black households;
- 1236% growth in Black-owned firms in Tampa Bay between 1997 and 2023, including 4.5x growth in employer firms, representing jobs added to the community;
- 35% of Black workers are in managerial or professional roles today versus just 5% in 1960.
Gallardo hopes highlighting the structural element of the lived experience of Tampa Bay’s Black families will drive further evolution in how the media reports their stories.
“I think that the individual success stories have migrated into the mainstream, but I think that the structural challenges, why they exist, and how we approach them in a positive light have not,” she explained.
Ultimately, Gallardo wants insights in Tampa Bay Forward to drive not just greater recognition of the community’s successes but focus the attention of local political, business and nonprofit leaders on the opportunities that remain to be achieved, both in Pinellas and beyond.
In particular she encouraged the community to “support in standing up the next generation of leaders via the renowned INROADS program that helped train leaders such as Nikki Gaskin-Capehart and other spotlighted innovators.”
For St. Petersburg, Gallardo notes that building institutional capacity is a critical next step, one Tampa Bay Forward will help focus and drive.
“There’s these groups in other major cities and population centers, where they institutionally anchor the agenda for Black economic advancement,” Gallardo explained, citing the Equity Institute of Durham and the CDC of Tampa. St. Pete, she noted, is one of the largest municipalities to lack such a group.
“It’s the community side that needs to really come together around this and then name the people who will carry it … and then on the majority side or the mainstream side, there needs to be some willingness to support those entities and to validate and invite them to the table.”
Tampa Bay Forward is available in St. Petersburg at the Urban League of the Florida Suncoast, 333 31st Street N, and in Tampa at the Black English Bookstore at 401 Oak Avenue and the Corporation to Develop Communities of Tampa, 1901 E Hillsborough Avenue.
Power Broker welcomes participants to a gathering of leaders on “Future Focused Strategies for Inclusive Growth” Wednesday (Oct. 7) from 9-10:30am. Interested participants can register here.
Contributions to the INROADS program can be made to the Urban League of the Florida Suncoast or The 2020 Fund at Community Foundation of Tampa Bay.
