Race and Entrepreneurship

For African Americans, entrepreneurship has historically been a way to assert economic freedom and combat the legacy of racism. Entrepreneurship offered a way to participate in the economic marketplace on their own terms, to ensure the success and economic stability of their communities, and to affirm a sense of belonging and citizenship. African American business owners have faced the same challenges that all businesses face, i.e., uncertainty about the future, rising costs, and issues of finance and labor. Yet they have also had to navigate a history of discrimination, segregation, racial violence, and economic exclusion. In the Jim Crow era businesses confronted the violence of lynching and the destruction of commercial areas. Today’s entrepreneurs face more subtle obstacles, but issues still persist. Unequal access to capital remains an on-going challenge. And although the products and services a business offers may not suggest a particular racial affiliation, the race (and gender) of a business owner can determine how that business is received by the outside world, where it can be located, who consumes its offerings, and the degree to which the business can participate in the broader market.