CHICAGO — Should black people go out of their way to patronize black-owned business?

Maggie Anderson says they should. In 2008, with the economy in the middle of the worst downturn since the 1930s, Ms. Anderson enlisted her husband and two daughters in a yearlong plan to consume goods and services exclusively from black-owned businesses. The journey became a basis for her 2012 book, “Our Black Year,” the subject of several TED talks about how to increase wealth in the African-American community, and the narrative behind a current cross-country tour aimed at spreading her gospel.

Blacks spend less money in black-owned businesses than other racial and ethnic groups spend in businesses owned by members of their groups, including Hispanics and Asians. A report by Nielsen and Essence estimates that black buying power will reach $1.3 trillion in the next few years, yet only a tiny fraction of that money is spent at black-owned businesses. Unless black people devote more attention to building wealth within the black community, Ms. Anderson and others contend, they will always be behind.

For Ms. Anderson, buying black presented multiple challenges. She purchased gas from a black-owned Citgo gas station 35 miles away from her home in Oak Park, Ill. Because that was inconvenient, she eventually bought gas cards from a black-owned store and used them at a station near her home. Finding a black-owned grocery store, bank and other establishments was more challenging than she had expected.

“When I think back on that year, driving was the least of it,” said Ms. Anderson, a lawyer with a master’s degree in business administration. “It was heartbreaking taking in how the West Side and the South Side used to have so many business owners, and now most of those businesses are owned by outsiders.”