Let me introduce you to four Black women doing extraordinary things you probably have never heard of.
Vine and Olive. Mali and Nikki. Atlanta. Premium olive oil. Four locations built on lunch breaks and late nights with no investor, no blueprint, and no safety net.
Mahaba Floristry. Nikeema. Greenville SC. Third generation florist carrying her grandmother’s legacy. The last Black owned flower shop standing in her entire city.
Melanin Haircare. Whitney and Taffeta. Natural haircare built from kitchen DIYs into $23.5 million in lifetime revenue. In Ulta. In Sephora. Still could not get a bank loan.
Sincerely Antoinette. Mercedes. Handcrafted copper and brass jewelry. Every single piece made by her hands alone. One of a kind every time.
I shop at all four. Regularly. With zero regret.
Who Dat?
I am a Gen X Black woman with a little money to spend and a very clear intention about where it goes. I like nice things. I want to buy Black. Yes, I said it. Ask your mama why.
Here is my problem. I cannot find US.
Not because we are not out here. We are everywhere. Black women owned businesses grew 13% in 2025 according to TheGrio, and they did it while Black women’s unemployment climbed to 7.3%. They are not building because the door opened. They are building because the door got slammed in their faces and they built their own. They are doing it with 0.3% of venture capital funding according to BET. That is not a typo.
The issue is not effort. I am an avid online shopper. I want to spend my coins with my people. The issue is that the infrastructure of this country was never designed to put Black businesses in front of Black buyers. That is not an accident. It is architecture.
We Out Here
The tools exist. The Green Book existed in 1936 because Black travelers needed a directory just to find safe places to sleep and eat. Almost 90 years later we are still building directories because the mainstream ones were not built for us.
Blapp. Official Black Wall Street. EatOkra. BuyBlack.org. WeBuyBlack. These platforms are out here curating Black businesses by category, location, and product type. The problem is they do not have marketing budgets either. Nobody is pushing them to the people who need them most. The algorithm is not built for that. Your comfort zone is not built for that.
So, we have to build the habit ourselves.
What You Need To Be Doing
Bookmark BuyBlack.org right now. Download Blapp. Use EatOkra before you open Yelp. Check Official Black Wall Street before you Google. For wellness, start with BLK + GRN. For makeup, Pat McGrath and Danessa Myricks have been right there the whole time.
Spend five minutes a week on socials actively searching for Black owned businesses in your purchasing lane. Toilet paper. Jewelry. Hair products. Flowers. Olive oil. We are in every single category. You just have to look.
Black History Month is not the only time our dollars should find our people. Make it February. Make it March. Make it every Tuesday when you are about to click Add to Cart on Amazon without thinking twice.
Think about US first. Every time. That is not a lot to ask. That is the least we can do- especially for women who are building empires on lunch breaks with no funding and no blueprint.
Because Black business IS good business. Full stop.
