black business

The vision of a Black Wall Street in Boston embodies more than just a shopping district. It embodies a movement toward economic empowerment, community unity, and a reduction of the race wealth gap.

In a July news conference announcing his new contract with the Boston Celtics, NBA All-Star Jaylen Brown spoke about creating a Black Wall Street in Boston to fight the area’s wealth disparities. He recognizes that Boston lacks what many other cities have managed to develop.

More than 60 vendors promoted their products and services at the NAACP convention in Boston, drawing long lines and lots of praise.

Starting a business requires planning. You may already have a great business concept, but, before you start selling products or opening stores, consider these six steps to start your business off on the right foot:

Two dozen small-businesses owners, including some in Boston’s Black community, who were most affected by the pandemic will receive a financial boost from the city, Mayor Michelle Wu’s office announced this week.

As a rookie reporter with the Bay State Banner close to 40 years ago, I was assigned a story about a METCO student expelled for allegedly stealing from a student locker in one of the pricey suburbs west of Boston. After interviewing the student, a kid from Dorchester, and a school administrator, I filed the story, which seemed pretty straightforward. But something was clearly eating the editor, Melvin B. Miller, as he bent over the copy in the newsroom.

Following the 2015 Boston Federal Reserve report, “The Color of Wealth,” which identified major racial wealth gaps in Boston, several Black businesses owners in Massachusetts joined together to create the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts.

Despite well-intended measures aimed at promoting greater racial and social equity in Boston’s burgeoning cannabis industry, several city regulations are stifling the ability of Black and Hispanic-owned cannabis businesses to thrive.

Apex Noire, the cannabis dispensary headed by former City Councilor and mayoral candidate Tito Jackson, celebrated its grand opening Saturday.

Black business owners with small companies are surprisingly optimistic about 2023 although many economists predict monetary challenges.

The Boston Impact Initiative (BII), a nonprofit impact investment group focused on businesses and entrepreneurship in Massachusetts communities of color, recently announced the launch of a new $20 million investment fund aimed at Black and brown entrepreneurs and local and regional community-controlled real estate ventures.

Robert Glover thinks of fixing shoes like sculpting. “Like making something out of clay. I’m taking a pair of shoes, tearing them apart and putting them back together,” he said, while sitting behind a counter labeled “No refunds” and surrounded by medieval-looking presses, clamps, shoe stands and single loose shoes.