Black Alliance spokeswoman Claudette Fleming outlined a vision for increasing economic empowerment at a public meeting last night.

She said black people were still marginalised economically despite being the majority in a wealthy country.

"68 percent of whites exist at the senior management earning levels while 65 percent of blacks exist at the non-professional levels," said Ms Fleming.

She called on the black community to stop letting fate decide its future and plan ahead.

"Our future economic development is not about continuing to worship the gods of greed, selfishness and materialism," she said.

"Instead our move forward is about creating an environment to execute just and accountable stewardship of the resources of our own community."

Ms Fleming, who is also Executive Director of Age Concern, urged blacks to back black-owned businesses.

She called for:

a management committee to advise budding businesses

a committee to teach and encourage blacks to become equity stakeholders

an investment society to provide investment opportunities

a children's bank to educate them on importance of saving and investing

and a mentorship committee to develop black businesses, individual business owners and hopefuls.

The Alliance is pushing for 300 members in the first year with a 50 percent increase in the following year.

Fellow speaker Senator Calvin Smith told the audience at St. Paul's Centennial Hall that the black community already had economic power with 3,000 black households earning more than $108,000 a year while 2,900 black people owned a total of $1.2 billion in property.

But he said too many blacks involved in business did so in antiquated models of single proprietorship or partnerships.

"The enterprise so constructed, dies with the demise of the owner or a managing partner."

This approach doomed the race to small high-risk individual enterprises, said Sen Smith.

He urged people to explore the possibilities of co-operatives in which ownership is shared and power stays in the hands of the majority because all shareholders get only one vote no matter how large their stake in the business.

The idea suited Bermuda's black economic history said Sen. Smith, where lodges, churches, clubs and trade unions had flourished.

"It would have been of major economic significance had these non-profit entities been able to pool their considerable resources to build co-operative ventures such as credit unions, insurance companies and co-operative housing," he said.

"And given the current existence of a black-based labour government the co-operative concept should be flourishing."

The speech, which had to be truncated because of time constraints, suggested Government might need to offer guarantees to banks to get them to offer venture capital to new co-ops.

He added: "Or Government might simply assist materially in the development of a co-operative financial institution to carry out the financing of the budding co-operatives."

The Senator, who sits on the Government benches, continued: "A major step towards black economic empowerment must be to elect a government that is most likely to assist in the development of the co-operative concept."