How are you supporting this Black Business Month?

It’s that time of year and a time when we, as Black businesses ask, what are y’all doing to support? To push the agenda of supporting Black businesses, we must first understand the history behind the movement.

In 1969, Frederick E. Jordan established his engineering and construction firm and worked for 6 months out of his home. When he attempted to scout for funding, he realised how little opportunities there were for African-Americans. This prompted him and his partner John William Templeton, executive editor of the scholarly publishing company eAccess Corp, to establish a period of time to “drive the policy agenda affecting the 2.6 million African-American businesses” to highlight and empower Black businesses all over. In 2004, Black Business Month was born and has since been a time where entities have come forward to show their support, but there’s much still to do.

So what’s the plan? Well here’s what you can do this month to help support Black businesses nationwide and globally.

A Starting Point

1. Be intentional. This month (and every month) go out of your way to patronize Black businesses. Whether this be online or in your neighborhood, google local Black owned businesses for your next supermarket run or just because, because Black businesses tend to create something for everyone. This small act will actually help you to see how difficult it is to find us because, well, marketing requires funding that we may not have.
2. Be authentic. Show up and show out! If you feel like you’re doing a chore by supporting, then you’re not being authentic. Picture yourself in the shoes of these entrepreneurs who stepped out even with all the odds against them and realise how your small act can potentially change their lives. Spend money with them, but show your support outside of that as well. Follow them on social media and post something you like about their service/product by tagging them. You never know how far your story/post will go towards helping that business thrive. Remember, every little helps!
3. Be consistent. Why not do something you love with a Black-owned business and make the effort to patronize one at least once per week. When you think about the amount of times we visit the grocery store, shop on Amazon, or even head out to enjoy a meal, you realize just how much we’re willing to spend. But one thing we don’t think about is just how many of them are BIPOC owned? Once per week doesn’t seem like too much, does it?

4 Black Businesses you can support in the Travel space

We end this blog by bringing you a list of 4 Black-owned travel brands you can support this month:

1. The Wind Collective – supporting this brand will help you not only to support a travel collective, but to also support Black creatives!
2. Exquisite Vacations – supporting this brand, is also supporting an individual. Andrea Williams is a travel agent and as you may already know, it’s a tough industry for Black travel agents!
3. Key2Mia – supporting this brand is supporting a Miami-based tour company bringing you throughout Miami to support diverse businesses.
4. Black Travel Alliance – supporting this brand will help you to support even more! They exist to support Black-owned brands in the travel space, so check them out for how to do more!