If you say the name Donald (Ducky) Birts in Camden, New Jersey, or in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at several other places, somebody in the room recognizes that name. Young people are even getting to know the name these days because there are a series of Donald (Ducky) Birt’s products on the shelves of all 12 Jeff Brown ShopRite Supermarkets. He has a sausage product with his name on it. There are also the Ducky Birts Eggs and Ducky Birts Pound Cake. (Patti Labelle, look out, here comes Ducky Birts).
Birts, now in his mid-80s, is still creating new products on top of what he already has. He’s coming up with hot new ideas. Always at the center of it all he works to raise money for African American youth who chose to attend Cheyney University, the nation’s first official college for “coloreds,” founded in 1837; and for students who will attend Lincoln University, founded in 1854.
Officially on paper, one might say, Donald Ducky Birts became a businessman in 1964. That’s when he opened a haberdashery clothing store in Camden, New Jersey, called “Ducky’s Dashery.” That business was located at 1119 Haddon Avenue. But really and truly, when you hear Ducky tell his life’s story, he became a businessman while he was still in elementary school, taking on a newspaper route to help his mother make ends meet. By 1968, after meeting the late Rev. Dr. Leon Sullivan, the pastor of Zion Baptist Church in North Philadelphia, Birts joined the church and became a close friend and confidant of Dr. Sullivan. Ultimately, Ducky became one of the first businesses to open at Progress Plaza, a shopping center in the heart of North Philadelphia that was the vision and inspiration of Dr. Sullivan.
Ducky stated, “Progress Plaza was the first Black-owned shopping Center in America, and I was very proud to be one of the businesses to open there. I owe a lot of credit and praise to Dr. Sullivan. He taught me almost everything I know about business, how to be successful, how to negotiate in the board rooms, and walk away with what you want.”
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