State Plates
The Montana Business Plate
In Montana, business plates turn on ownership — the firms a population builds. This plate places Black Montana in the national business geography: the benchmarks below are the published national figures for Black-owned businesses, and Montana's distribution figures — 13,000 Black residents, 1 percent of the state — give the scale of the community from which the state's Black-owned firms are drawn.
The National Pattern
In Montana, that national business pattern meets the state's own firms and employers, and the table below fixes the population it describes. The Census Bureau's Annual Business Survey counts about 161,000 Black-owned employer firms — companies with at least one paid employee — generating roughly 183 billion dollars in annual receipts and employing about 1.3 million people. In Montana, held against the national counts, the state's own rows say how its business population stands.
In Montana, that national business pattern meets the state's own firms and employers, and the table below fixes the population it describes. Federal statistics classify a firm as Black-owned when Black owners hold 51 percent or more of the stock or equity. For Montana, held against the national counts, the state's own rows say how its business population stands.
For Montana, the national business figures are context; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the plate's subject. Black Americans are 13.5 percent of the national population but own about 3 percent of employer firms, and those firms take in roughly 1 percent of the receipts of all employer businesses. In Montana, the comparison the plate invites is therefore two-sided: the national firm counts on one side, the state's enterprise on the other.
Reading This Plate
How to read this plate: the state rows are the published census figures for Montana; the benchmark rows are the published national business record, labeled as benchmarks. Ownership rates measured nationally become concrete only at the scale of an actual population — and Montana's counted Black population is the ground from which its firms, employers and sole proprietors alike, are built.
The Population Behind the Plate
For Montana, the national business figures are context; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the plate's subject. The 25th Infantry — a Black regiment — garrisoned Fort Missoula from 1888, and from there its soldiers conducted the Army's celebrated bicycle experiments: in 1896 and 1897 the 'Bicycle Corps' rode from Missoula to Yellowstone and then to St. Louis, 1,900 miles in 41 days, testing bicycles as military transport and generating national press — the riders' photographs are among the iconic images of the Black regulars. In Montana, the plate's own table is where this general material meets the specific geography, and the two should be read together.
For Montana, the national business figures are context; the state's own distribution, tabled below, is the plate's subject. No Montana city holds a Black population large enough to form a census-visible community in the mainland sense. The comparison the plate invites is therefore two-sided: the national ladder on one side, Montana's attainment on the other.
A note on this plate's figures, stated once and plainly: Black share of the state population (alone): 1%; Black share, alone or in combination: 1.2%; Black residents, alone or in combination: 13,000. In Montana, each figure is published by the source named below and rounded as published; the plate's map shades the Black share of the population on the same basis, so the table and the map can be read against each other without conversion.
A closing word on the use of this plate: the figures for Montana are a reference, meant to be cited, compared, and returned to. In Montana, a reader who needs the underlying counts will find them in the published tables of the source named below, from which every figure here descends without alteration beyond the rounding the source itself applies.
How this plate is read, for Montana: begin with the map, whose shading bands the published Black share into the legend's five classes, then turn to the table, which states the measures in figures — Black share of the state population (alone): 1%; Black share, alone or in combination: 1.2%. In Montana, the two presentations are one record in two forms, and a reader who checks one against the other has the plate's whole method in hand.
The record behind this plate of Montana is published, not estimated by this atlas: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey; Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics. Where the table carries a national benchmark row for Montana, the row is labeled with the basis it is published on — the same measure, the same basis, two geographies.
| Measure | Figure |
|---|---|
| Black share of the state population (alone) | 1% |
| Black share, alone or in combination | 1.2% |
| Black residents, alone or in combination | 13,000 |
| United States benchmark — Black-owned firms with paid employees | 161,000 |
| United States benchmark — annual receipts of Black-owned employer firms | $183 Billion |
| United States benchmark — people employed by Black-owned employer firms | 1.3 Million |
| United States benchmark — Black-owned nonemployer (solo) firms | 3 Million |
Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Annual Business Survey; Nonemployer Statistics by Demographics. Method: Figures are drawn from the published federal sources named on this page, for the geography named; tile shading bands the published Black population share into the five legend classes. Counts are rounded as published by the source agency, and national benchmark rows are labeled with the basis they are published on.