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This Black History Month has been unusual. Normally, it’s a time of celebration, when people recognize the contributions African Americans have made over 400 years.
But as efforts to erase Black history from schools and roll back DEI initiatives gain momentum, the mood has been dampened.
Still, regardless of the cultural climate, Black history is important to know.
African Americans weren’t legally allowed to own businesses until Reconstruction in the 1860s. Prior to that, freed slaves were able to establish businesses, and a few—like James Forten—achieved great success. But Black entrepreneurship was not common.
Before the 1860s, most Black people in America were unable to monetize their skills and abilities. In fact, slave owners often co-opted their enslaved workers’ talents and profited from them.
For example, billion-dollar alcohol brand Jack Daniel’s recently revealed that its founder learned how to distill whiskey from an enslaved man named Nearis Green in the 1860s.
When African Americans were finally granted the right to own businesses, entrepreneurship exploded. That legacy continues today, with Black women now the fastest-growing segment of entrepreneurs in the U.S. But during the Reconstruction era Black businesses faced significant challenges, including widespread racial discrimination, limited access to capital, violent intimidation from white supremacist groups, lack of land ownership, and restrictive Jim Crow laws that severely hampered their ability to operate and grow.
This forced many Black-owned businesses to primarily serve a segregated Black clientele within their own communities.
But that segregation led to the creation of iconic Black brands.
In the early 1900s, Madame C.J. Walker created and sold haircare products for Black women, becoming America’s first self-made female millionaire.
In 1942, Johnson Publishing was founded in Chicago. Its publications, Ebony and Jet, provided a platform for African American culture and representation.
In 1959, Berry Gordy founded Motown Records, introducing legendary artists like Stevie Wonder, The Jackson 5, and The Supremes.
These brands have influenced me directly. Aside from the fact that Stevie Wonder is one of my all-time favorite artists, my mother—raised in Detroit in the 1960s—recalls passing by the Motown studios and hearing The Jackson 5 rehearse.
And I started my career as a newspaper reporter on the South Side of Chicago, where Johnson Publishing still loomed large, and a copy of Ebony Magazine was on every living room table.
With the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the criminalization of discrimination, Black businesses gained the opportunity to bring their skills and innovations to a broader, more diverse customer base.
At BGLH Marketplace, our products consist of ingredients from all over the world, but we are primarily rooted in African beauty traditions. Shea butter is native to the continent of Africa, and the Ivory Coast and Ghana are the world’s top producers of cocoa butter.
As a Black woman, I am honored to share these traditions with a diverse customer base. In light of history, it is not something I take for granted.
So this Black History Month, I am celebrating the strength, resilience, and ingenuity of Black entrepreneurship. We are here—still thriving and still serving.
~Leila
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