Why this exists
Black Americans are 14% of the United States population. Black-owned businesses with employees are less than 4% of American employer firms.
A 3.5-to-1 underrepresentation - the accumulated result of exclusion from capital, from land, from the GI Bill, from federal contracting, from corporate supply chains, layered on the foundational theft of enslaved labor. Businesses are how communities generate employment. Where a community does not own at its share, it cannot employ at its share.
The absence
The federal government has never counted business ownership at the lineage-specific level that distinguishes descendants of United States chattel slavery.
There has never been a registry, a certification, or an organized economic identity for this community - and there is no federally recognized designation through which it can reach the resources and set-asides that other groups can claim.
An uncounted community cannot show a disparity. A community that cannot show a disparity cannot argue for a remedy. The absence of the number is not neutral; it is the thing that keeps the gap arguable.
We are not waiting to be counted. We are counting ourselves.
What we are building
A searchable, verified directory of descendant-owned businesses across all fifty states. Search it now.
Credentialing for individuals and for businesses, giving descendant-owned enterprise a recognized identity in supplier diversity and procurement. See the schedule.
Annual data collection, published as the State of the Descendant Economy Report.
Genealogical review of every descendant certification, against the documentary record. How review works.
When certification opens, the waiting list is contacted first - before it is announced publicly.
Join the waiting list