Four Degrees to the Streets is excited to celebrate Black History Month with two episodes that focus on Black history, community, and planning. This week's episode features a panel of Black business owners from around the country! 

Speakers include Kira Hibbert, based in Philadelphia, owner and partner at 3BL Developers, and real estate agent at Coldwell Banker Preferred.

Basheera Agyeman, founder and owner of SheWrapz, a Ghanaian-American Muslim educator based in Baton Rouge.

We also heard from Justis Pitt-Goodson (Founder/CEO) and Taha Shimou (COO/Head of Design) at BrownMill Company based in New Jersey.

Press play to hear:

• Statistics on minority-owned businesses and the significance of Black-owned businesses in the community.
• Challenges for Black-owned businesses pre-COVID and present-day and how the speakers overcame them. 
• Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and its increased spotlight on supporting Black-owned business. From May 25 to July 1, 2020, there were 2.5 million searches for Black-owned businesses, an increase from only 35,000 searches over the same period in 2019 (an increase of 7,000%), according to a Yelp report highlighting changes in searches for the phrase ‘black-owned.’

Thank you for listening and tune in every-other Tuesday where Nimo and Jas keep it Four Degrees to the Streets.

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Resources:

Kira's Instagram: Philly Realtor Finds

Basheera’s Instagram: SheWrapz

Justis/Taha: BrownMill Instagram

US Census Bureau: Annual Business Survey

Brookings Institution: To expand the economy, invest in Black businesses

National Bureau of Economic Research: Labor Demand in the time of COVID-19: Evidence from vacancy postings and UI claims

Forbes: Support For Black-Owned Businesses Increases More Than 7,000%, Yelp Reports