Everyone has heard of Black Wall Street. Meet the founder, O.W. Gurley ! [In 1905 Gurley and his wife sold their property in Noble County and moved 80 miles to the oil boom town of Tulsa. Gurley purchased 40 acres of land in North Tulsa and established his first business, a rooming house on a dusty road that would become Greenwood Avenue. He subdivided his plot into residential and commercial lots and eventually opened a grocery store. As the community grew around him, Gurley prospered. Between 1910 and 1920, the Black population in the area he had purchased grew from 2,000 to nearly 9,000 in a city with a total population of 72,000. The Black community had a large working-class population as well as doctors, lawyers, and other professionals who provided services to them. Soon the Greenwood section was dubbed “Negro Wall Street” by Tuskegee educator Booker T. Washington. Greenwood, now called Black Wall Street, was nearly self-sufficient with Black-owned businesses, many initially financed by Gurley, ranging from brickyards and theaters to a chartered airplane company. Gurley built the Gurley Hotel at 112 N. Greenwood and rented out spaces to smaller businesses. His other properties included a two-story building at 119 N. Greenwood, which housed the Masonic Lodge and a Black employment agency. He was also one of the founders of Vernon AME Church. Gurley’s prosperity ended in 1921...] Read more here: https://www.blackpast.org/african.../o-w-gurley-1868-1935/
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We had the good fortune of connecting with Murphy Paschall and we’ve shared our conversation below. Hi Murphy, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business? I wanted to get a message out to the African American community at large about the amount of money we spend in the United States economy annually. So, eventually I thought using fashion was the best way to get this message to the people. What should our readers know about your business? Black Paper StreetWear is a company I started 5 years ago in the dining room of my parents home. Strapped for cash but full of ideas, I always had a passion for helping people and a love for fashion. Just recognizing the unfair treatment of African Americans in this country, I felt a need to get involved to help in some kind of way. This line of thinking brought information across my path about the collective spending of Black people so, it was my thought that a race of people with this kind of spending power had the funding to change the conditions they live under. African Americans spend over 1.3 trillion dollars annually in the United States economy. Being low on funds I did not have a way to buy t-shirts in bulk, have them screen printed with empowering messages and selling them to customers. Then in 2016, I discovered an article about building a clothing brand using the dropship method. Next, I created a website on Shopify.com and linked my website to my Printful.com account. Printful manufactures my designed t-shirts and ships them to my customers. Printful uses a process called ‘Print on Demand’ meaning they only print what my customers order … making my overhead minimum. Read more... November 18, 2021 at 12:30 pm Register today at https://edacwbc.ecenterdirect.com/events/650 Join the Balt Metro WBC, the Maryland Capital Enterprise Women's Business Center, and the Maryland Women's Business Center (Rockville, MD) for a B.A.I.L panel discussion on how these industry experts can support your business: Bankers, Accountants, Insurance Agents & Lawyers on November 18th,2021 from 12:30 PM- 1:30 PM. This Discussion will be facilitated by Jim Peterson, Vice President and Small Business Ambassador on the Minority & Women Owned Business Team at M & T Bank. The following experts will be joining the panel discussion:
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