Entrepreneurs Whose Business is Black History
“There’s the shared Black history quiz and the I Have a Dream Puzzle. It’s a traditional 4X4 puzzle that actually plays the “I Have a Dream” speech as you’re solving it. There’s a word search, the Discovering Africa Brick Breaker game, Egyptian Hieroglyphics Match, African Flags and Mbira Says, said Morton.
A traditional African instrument, the Mbira is used to mimic the light and sound of the Simon Says memory game.
“It’s a living application, so I’ll add more interesting software. I’m also exploring mobile applications so that it can be downloaded on whatever device you’re using. It’s going to continue to grow with games and entertainment software,” he said. “My goal is for Black history to not just be a month thing, a Kwanzaa period thing or a Juneteenth thing. I want to enable people to have information and explore Black history all year-round.”
Brown Sugar & Spice Books
Like Morton, it was Galloway-Blake’s parents that encouraged her to pursue starting a Black history influenced business.
As a young girl, Galloway-Blake’s mother shared stories about growing up on a rural farm in Virginia and attending a segregated elementary and high school.
“She talked about how they walked to school for three miles and the school bus would pass her by. She told me how she went to college, felt ill-prepared and had struggles,” said Galloway-Blake. “My father was a World War II veteran. I heard stories of him fighting at the Battle of the Bulge in an army of segregated soldiers. Looking back I can see how the stories my parents told me have played a role in our people’s history.”
As a woman, Galloway-Blake’s family stories stuck with her. In 1990 she gave up her full-time job as a teacher to begin operations at Brown Sugar & Spice Books. A one-stop online destination for African-American books, educational resources and services, Galloway-Blake’s business still provides her the opportunity to implement teaching.
“We’re trying to provide services and products to make the teaching of Black history easy. Most of the teachers in America are Caucasian females so we want to make it easy for them to find Black history resources. Many teachers will not travel into the inner city in the heart of Harlem or Detroit — where BSSB is based — so we make it easy to order from the catalogue online.”
