NJ Spotlight News, January 4, 2021, Self-made Black women: The new faces of small business in Newark
In 2019, photographer Tinnetta Bell and Carrie Stetler embarked on a year-long photojournalism project called Self Made, which documents nine women who own small businesses in Newark’s South and West Wards.
They wanted to localize a national trend. For more than a decade, Black women had been the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the nation, despite the obstacles they faced. From 2014 to 2019, firms owned by Black women grew at a rate of 50%, according to the American Express 2019 State of Women-Owned Business Report.
Americans love the image of small-business owners, even as they flock to big-box stores and shop online. Main Street’s mom and pop shops symbolize hard work, independence and community. But Black women are rarely presented as the face of small-business owners — despite their exponential demographic growth. That’s especially true if they’re located in struggling and often stigmatized communities like Newark’s South and West wards. Self Made was created to shine a light on them.
In a study by the nonprofit National Community Reinvestment Coalition, which sent sets of Black and White borrowers to 17 banks for PPP money, White subjects overwhelmingly received better treatment, including credit-line offers and encouragement to apply for the PPP program. Black women business owners fared the worst.
