The article talks about why the Patterson company did not go on to become a big automaker like Ford. Although they say that, on the one hand, few of the small early automakers made it, and Patterson was ten years too late, they also say that it was surely due to systemic racism. It's an odd thing to say not because racism would not have been experienced by the Patterson company but because it doesn't seem like it explains what happened, given the article's more general points about the fate of most of the early automakers.

While Frederick had the right idea, small firms like his own couldn’t compete for long with the mass-manufacturing might, and daily production capacity, of far larger automakers like Ford, General Motors, Willys, Studebaker, and others. Ford alone was building 10,000 cars a day, a number Patterson couldn’t begin to match.

Beyond sheer manufacturing scale, Patterson also lacked the engineering and design resources of these large concerns. Considering the time frame, that was no doubt due to the fact that, as the company’s own ads state, they were “the only Negro Automobile Manufacturing Concern in the United States.” Systemic racism and prejudice of the time made it difficult for Patterson & Sons to attract the financing necessary to compete. And on top of that, they were a decade too late. If automaking had been undertaken a decade sooner, it’s possible that Patterson & Sons might have grown along with the industry into a larger manufacturer rather than remaining a small-time assembler—something the company never was as a carriage builder.