The story below is from our January/February 2022 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
If being Black isn’t enough to hamper business owners, here comes COVID-19 to decrease the odds of success even further. But Roanokers are battling back.
It has been an especially difficult two years for African American business owners and the stats only tell part of the story.
Consider that between February and April of 2020, Black business ownership fell by more than 40% nationally. Nearly 60% of Black-owned businesses faced financial hardship before the COVID-19 pandemic even began, more than double that for white-owned businesses.
Despite the grief, according to Gradient Financial, African American owners are content; 70% say so. And more than 70% say they are profitable. Score.org says Black women lead the way. They represent 40% of new businesses owned by women.
But the rub remains: Gradient reports that—COVID or no COVID—fewer Black-owned businesses are approved for financing and when they are, the amounts are lower and at a higher interest rate. The report concludes, “Without the funds to invest in as many resources as other businesses, … attracting clients becomes exponentially more difficult.” Less than 30% of Black owners have been given Paycheck Protection Plan (PPP) loans, compared to 60% of white applicants.
Trish White-Boyd, Roanoke’s vice mayor and owner of Blue Ridge Senior Services, says that statistic “does not surprise me. We have to put a lot of energy into [the business]. We really have to be focused and know what we’re doing because we don’t have access to the resources others have.
“Whatever happens, we have to make it happen. There is still a huge wealth gap. It will take 20-40 years before we are equal—if that ever happens. It won’t happen in my lifetime and that’s one reason I’m campaigning [for re-election] on that issue. Black women are outperforming the market, but the wealth gap persists.”
Diane Speaks, owner of She’s International on the Roanoke City Market, says, “Black small business owners were disproportionately less likely to survive the pandemic than any other racial group. I, like most Black business owners, have no generational wealth.
“The significant loss of Black businesses is not only devastating to the owners and their employees, but also to the community as a whole. The lack of the presence of Black-owned businesses is more upsetting for our community than the closing of a multimillion-dollar business. We are not just business owners, but role models for our communities. When Black businesses close, a light in the community dies.”
“Struggle” is the name of the game in small business, but it is spelled with capital letters for those who are African American. Roanoke has a small, but rich and diverse Black business community and recently the Chamber of Commerce made its first effort at listing those businesses.
“It’s not as flushed out as we would like,” says Chamber Director Joyce Waugh. She notes that there is a “hesitancy” among some Black owners to be included, but “We have to keep trying, keep being open.” Black owners are taking part in some of the chamber’s Small Business Development Center programs and what that “tells us is that there are more doing business and doing it well. [Some] would be eligible for more funding and resources, but there is a reluctance [to apply] … we have to make it comfortable enough for them to give it a try.”
Here is a look at a few Black-owned businesses and how they are finding ways to stay ahead of the game.
Jamal Milner, M3:GRAFIX
Jamal Milner has operated M3:GRAFIX for the past 24 years, opening it when he was 20. He’d had a colorful—and hardly traditional—training period beginning before he was a teenager, and he had some good mentors along the way. He was writing software at 16 and went to Virginia Western Community College, though he didn’t finish because his scholarship money ran out. He was working all the while.
For the longest time, Milner was the go-to guy as a software engineer, working 18-hour days, and he had set up his business at the New Century Venture Center. He discovered and often had re-confirmed that Roanoke “has a lot of conscious and unconscious bias” against people of his race. At the 1999 ADDY Awards, Roanoke’s top prizes for advertising, he was a nominee (and eventually a winner) and “I had on a tuxedo. Somebody asked me to refill his drink. The servers were Black. One year I won 11 ADDYs and there was no mention of it at all in the newspaper, though the wins of the agencies were detailed.”
He is undeniably successful, but he sees that “Black faces in white spaces is hard. If the choice for a service is between a Black business or a white one, I always have to be very good, extremely good.”
Darren Wiggins, Jersey Water Ice
Darren Wiggins’ enthusiasm is the first hint. His tenacity cements it. Wiggins, a New Jersey native, owns Jersey Water Ice, basically an ice cream shop that also serves sandwiches. It’s on 11th Street in Roanoke and operates out of a van occasionally.
He opened a year ago after being denied a PPP loan four times because his business, said the PPP folks, “was not valid enough.” It was recently valid enough to sign a contract with Ocean City Casino near Atlantic City as its Italian ice vendor.
“Things are going so fast,” he says, “that I can’t keep up with them sometimes. It’s awesome.” His family is helping and “people come from all over” to sample his dessert. It’s something this neighborhood [where he has lived for eight years] hasn’t had.
“Long before I got here,” he says, there were obstacles. “The odds are stacked: education, environment, resources. I was able to make out and found that it takes a higher power to accomplish” what he wanted. “It would discourage a normal man. … I’m happy I don’t look like what I’ve been through.”
His goal, he says, “is to add, not take away. I’m transitioning into the person I want to be.”
Chris Tribble, SNAPKRAKLEPOP Photography
Chris Tribble has worked in technology for Roanoke City for several years, but at 40 and with his family stable, he wants to give his bliss a shot. He’s a photographer—and a good one—and he’s been practicing his craft on the side for long enough now (five years) that he wants to put more than his toe into the water with SnapKraklePop (SKP) Photography.
“This started out as therapy,” he says. “I had insomnia and I’d go out for walks and take my camera. My wife looked at the pictures and said, ‘These are great!’ So, I bought a nice camera and started shooting friends and family.” Now, “I’d like to turn full time” to photography.
Realistically, he notes, “There are not many Black male photographers. In booking, I’m a bit of a surprise [to customers]. People look for the typical and I don’t fit. It isn’t disrespectful or blatant, but people are comfortable with their own. This is an industry dominated by white females. I’ve built my catalogue on art and the proof is in the pudding. It matters less what I look like.”
Still, “I have more Black customers than white ones.” He’s counting on his quality overcoming that.
Walter Williams, Boxy Swedish Cars
Walter Williams opened Boxy Swedish Cars repair shop in 1990 shortly after a white police officer stopped him driving late at night in Salem. The cop asked why he was out, and Williams said he was testing a car he’d been working on all day. “The cop said, ‘You ought to be working for yourself. The guy you work for is asleep.” Williams took the advice.
It took him five years to finally make a profit, but he’s been solid since. He was a Volvo mechanic at West Motor Sales and had developed a loyal clientele, some of whom moved to his new shop with him because “I treated their cars as if they were mine.”
He’s had some racial problems (one with a state trooper who assigned inspections who simply would not approve his shop; when the trooper was replaced, the approval came quickly), but the vast majority of his customers are white. Volvo is—frankly—a white, upper-middle-class car. Bankers like them, which played well for Williams.
Williams notes that “Black people don’t seem to want to come to a shop with a Black owner. A certain percentage will go to a white shop because they don’t want you to succeed. Integration separates us.”
He’s a guy who has “never applied for a job,” but he has advice for Black people (or anybody else) wanting to go into business: “The key is to focus on what you want out of life. Have people around you who want to advance, not just hangers-on. Never let them change your focus.”
Diane Speaks, She’s International Boutique
Diane Speaks, 68, was an airline flight attendant for 35 years, but when 9/11 scorched the earth and the airline cut her salary substantially, “Plan B was born. With the experience of traveling all over the world and visiting countless fashion districts, I created She’s International Boutique to house exquisite international fashions.” Money from family members helped her kick-start. “I don’t think [generational wealth is] something people of color have access to in most cases,” she says.
Her personality and contacts led to nearly-immediate success. She’s been at it for 16 years now and “I have needed to keep reimagining She’s International, keeping concepts fresh. I put on dinner parties, fashion shows, art parties, luncheons and more parties. My employees helped me establish a website. My young high school girls helped me stay on social media. A small business owner means working 24/7, and sometimes more.”
She’s had help through the trying pandemic. “I am a survivor. I must survive. It’s a year and a half later, and so far, I’m still here. I have lost a substantial amount of revenue. I would not be here if it weren’t for government assistance. I’m not ashamed to say that. There are countless other stores who are here because they also received government loans and grants.”
Trish White-Boyd, Blue Ridge Senior Services
Trish White-Boyd has a lot of employees who depend on her home-care business. She won’t be specific because “the number is variable,” but COVID cut those numbers by a good bit, at least for the short term.
When she opened Blue Ridge Senior Services 16 years ago, there were few home care businesses operating in the Roanoke Valley. There are a lot now. She has to depend heavily on referrals and that depends almost entirely on reputation, she says. “Black businesses have to dot the ‘I’ and cross the ‘T’, run a tight ship and we have to be better.”
Her experience is that “Roanoke is more difficult” to do business for African Americans because “it is so segregated, although it is progressive in many ways.” It is sad, she says, that “educated Black people are hard to get here and most don’t stay when they come. Many of us do the best we can to involve new Black professionals because we aren’t growing them. They move here. There is just so little of the grow up, start a business, be successful” in Roanoke.
Baraka Kasongo, Volatia
Baraka Kasongo opened his interpreting business, Volatia, with two strikes against him. He is Black and he is an immigrant from Rwanda. He worked for education, eventually earning an MBA and he opened his business in 2003. At 35, he has clients all over the country and, he says, a combined 1,099 employees on call.
Volatia offers translation of 286 languages all day, every day to lawyers, medical personnel, schools, government, emergency services, etc.
Kasongo, who spent years in a refugee camp as a child, speaks five languages, and he insists that “I didn’t set out to become wealthy. I am driven to make an impact.”
He is not at all naïve about his color affecting success. “It is a major frustration due to the enormous cost involved,” he says. “I have to work two or three times as hard to do what half what my counterparts [who are white] do. I ask no favors, just an equitable opportunity. Where equitable doesn’t pass, equal will do just fine.”
He often sees that “the hatred I ran from [in Rwanda] has clearly followed me. Still, this is far better than the refugee pens” and “I see improvement. There must be improvement. When people talk about struggles, no matter how painful, that is a start.”
And for these owners, a start is a good place to begin.
The story above is from our January/February 2022. For more stories, subscribe today or view our FREE digital edition. Thank you for supporting local journalism!