Remembering the achievement of great black women entrepreneurs
Great black women entrepreneurs
This month is about the celebration of Black people in the UK. In this blog, we will be focusing on black women entrepreneurs. Their achievements to be highlighted here. Some people may wonder why pick a group to celebrate. It is better to raise awareness of some of the things that we may sometimes ignore or even not notice.
We need to highlight, respect and celebrate the work of these great women. In a world of marginalization and differences, it is easy to forget contributions of others. There are only a few mention of women’s contributions in history. But there were millions of women who contributed to our progress than have been given credit for their inventions and sacrifices.
History left them out
The men who wrote our history mostly ignore the minorities, better to focus on the efforts of the majority. Historians ‘forgot’ the black women who helped NASA astronauts to calculate their journeys to space. Women like Katherine Johnson, the mathematician behind space exploration, forgotten until recently. For history to be accurate, we have to tell the story of everyone, not just a few.
Key Achievements
There is a lot of incredible stories of women of colour who have achieved so much despite the challenges and circumstances. Yes, they may not have the massive budgets of some of the big companies, we need to support them for their efforts and guts. See some articles in the links below.
Time to celebrate and recognize these remarkable women. I am sure there are millions more unsung women across the world.
A research on the role of women in some of the most advanced economies is definitely long overdue. More importantly, the role of women of colour, especially in the UK needs to be highlighted. This is not only in the developed countries where they may face racial and sexual discrimination, but more so in developing countries. We recently witnessed young girls in Afghanistan afraid of attending schools.
The trail blazers
History shows more remarkable women like Madam CJ Walker, the first female African American self made millionaire. Here was a woman whose parents were slaves and was born into slavery in 1867. Rising from poverty to being a millionaire entrepreneur was a massive achievement in the early 20th century USA.
Remember the documentary of the “The men who built America”, well women also contributed during those days. Without Bertha Benz, we may not have Mercedes Benz car company.
Have your heard of Mary Ellen Pleasant? One of the most industrious women of the 19th century.
In his book ‘Black Fortunes’ Shomari Wills wrote about African Americans who survived slavery to become millionaires. This is a great book and takes us back to the unfairness of the world in the 18th to the 20th centuries America. Thanks to the internet we can learn about these great people. Annie Malone, Olive Beech and many more
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/574385/historical-female-entrepreneurs
These days, we know of Oprah Winfrey, Beyoncé Knowles and the others, but not so 100 years ago.
We all try our best everyday, but we may need to think about others who have to go the extra mile just to be on equal footing with us. There are too many incredible people to list in a blog like this, so a lot of links below may help those who want to find out more.
What are your thoughts and suggestions?
The links below can help
The link below provides a list of some of the greatest black women entrepreneurs in history.
This first link is that of 99 Black female entrepreneur businesses
https://www.createcultivate.com/blog/black-female-entrepreneurs-you-should-know/
This is about the great black women working at NASA
Forbes provides about some of the current entrepreneurs to note
Do you want to find out about the history of innovation? we have you covered
https://www.enterprisedoctors.com/the-history-of-innovation/
