On September 9, 2011 the Obama administration announced plans to dismantle a federal contracting program originally established through the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., and the passage of the Civil Rights Act, a move that could economically devastate minority communities.

The Obama administration announced the plans to end one of the oldest and most effective minority-owned small business federal contracting programs in the Federal Register. A final ruling on the proposal is pending. The proposal is aimed at ending federal programs that establish, for the Department of Defense (DOD), NASA and the U.S. Coast Guard, a five percent federal contracting goal with minority-owned small businesses.

This is the latest in several instances of abuse of federal small business contracting programs. In addition to attempts to eliminate minority-owned federal contracting programs, the Obama administration has been criticized for diverting billions of dollars a month in federal small business contracts to Fortune 500 firms and other large businesses worldwide.

“It’s a tragedy that the mainstream media has refused to report on this story and that the first African American president is presiding over the elimination of the nation’s most successful program to direct federal infrastructure dollars to minority-owned small businesses,” said American Small Business League (ASBL) President Lloyd Chapman. “Nobody knows about this; it’s gone completely unreported, and it’s hard to believe that this has happened.”

Close to 35 percent of the U.S. population is made up of ethnic minorities, and 5.8 million businesses are minority-owned. To date, minority organizations nationwide have been unsuccessful in blocking the Obama administration’s plan to eliminate the minority-contracting program. The ASBL projects that once the program is eliminated, minority-owned companies across the country will lose between $25 billion and $50 billion per year in federal contracts.