When Pastor Amos Atkinson Jr. arrived in Spokane in November 1997, he came for a state job and a fresh assignment. What he didn’t yet know was that he would become one of the region’s most trusted catalysts for Black entrepreneurship–quietly helping scores of small businesses, LLCs, and nonprofits find their footing, their paperwork, and their purpose.
Nearly three decades later, Atkinson’s impact spans pulpits, board rooms, and kitchen-table business plans. As senior pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, the oldest Black church in Washington state, and a longtime advocate through the Carl Maxey Center and other community spaces, Atkinson has become a go-to mentor for Black and Brown entrepreneurs across Spokane. He was hired to direct the Small Business Resource Network. Many entrepreneurs in Spokane’s Black community have gleaned from Atkinson’s tutelage.
In recognition of that work, he has been named a 2025 NAACP Community Champion Award winner–an honor that reflects not just his service, but his philosophy: Black economic empowerment is spiritual work.
Raised in Compton, California, after being born in Houston, Texas, Atkinson grew up watching his father and grandfather run a family detail shop. From seventh grade through high school, he worked alongside them, making $50 a week at first, then $150 by the time he reached ninth and tenth grade. That experience planted something deeper than a work ethic; it planted a vision of ownership.
Later, as a field service coordinator for the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries and a community leader in Spokane’s historic Black church, Atkinson saw a gap: plenty of talent and hustle, but not enough access, knowledge, or support to turn ideas into generational wealth.
He is blunt about what needs to change–starting in schools and in our mindset.
“We need to start teaching about how to become -– instead of becoming consumers–how do we become owners of our own thing. See, we are good at becoming consumers in our communities. You know, we’ll buy it, but we need to learn how to be owners instead of consumers.”
For Atkinson, economic empowerment is inseparable from self-determination. He challenges the idea that college is the only path, calling for more honest conversations about trades, entrepreneurship, and the realities of sustaining a business. He has helped young people enter electrical apprenticeships, supported caregivers turning passion into home care ventures, and walked countless first-time enterprise leaders through the basics of forming an LLC.
His workshops on business development and financial literacy–often held at the Carl Maxey Center–have drawn packed rooms. People come with ideas that were mere inklings they’ve been carrying for years. Atkinson meets them with candor and encouragement, helping them manifest that inkling into something greater.
He insists that the missing piece isn’t just capital; it’s knowledge about how money actually works.
“Our issue is we have to teach ourselves about money. We’ve never learned about money for real. It was survival. And if you look at it here in the twenty-first century, a lot of us still treat money as survival and not as an asset that can help us further.”
For him, generational wealth is not an abstract buzzword. It’s his brother in Oklahoma, who came home from prison, learned the waste-oil business, and now owns multiple trucks, properties, and a block of houses–using that income to support his family and employ others. It’s building living trusts, buying property in places like Belize, and positioning the next generation so that they start from stability, not scarcity.
Yet Atkinson is just as focused on collectivism and solidarity as he is on individual success. He challenges Spokane’s Black community to shift from competition to collaboration, from suspicion to shared strategy.
“It should never be about competition. It should always be about, ‘Let’s collaborate. How can I make us better? How can I mentor someone along the way that may want to do what I’m doing?’”
That ethic shows up in how he talks about other businesses–sending people to Black-owned restaurants like Jewel of the North, encouraging folks to visit new ventures like Kindred Public House and proudly naming the organizations he has supported, such as Locked In Fathers Alliance, Raze Early Learning Development Center.
For him, every new business is not just a storefront; it’s a node in a larger network of survival, pride, and possibility.
He is equally clear that empowerment requires discipline. Inspiration, he says, is not enough.
“If you don’t have any discipline, you won’t be successful. And if you don’t believe you have something worth selling, how are you going to make me believe it? How are you going to make me buy it if you don’t believe what you’re selling is worth me buying?”
That tough love shows up in the practical advice he gives: don’t undercut your bids just to land a contract; know your target audience; review your mission and vision regularly; learn how to talk about your business in 30 seconds; and don’t hire people who won’t protect your brand.
As a pastor, he frames this work in spiritual terms: stewardship, responsibility, and the call to leave something behind. He often reminds people that knowledge hoarded dies with us–and that real leadership means training others to carry the torch.
Atkinson believes Spokane is at a “prime time” moment for Black business. There are now enough Black-owned enterprises here–contractors, caterers, pop-up clinics, clothing brands, coffee roasters–that, as he puts it, “you can probably find anybody in this community right now in business to do anything you gotta get done.”
The challenge now, he says, is making that ecosystem visible, connected, and sustainable: a Black Business Expo under one roof, a stronger culture of mentorship, and a community that spends its dollars with intention.
This is the work that has earned Pastor Amos Atkinson Jr. the title of a community champion, but if you ask him, he’ll say the real reward is watching a new generation of Black entrepreneurs step into their power.
“I can’t take any of this knowledge with me when I leave here,” he says. “So anything I’m giving away is just that–giving it away.”
And Spokane is richer for it.