Madam C.J. Walker did not wait. The first self-made female millionaire in American history — born to formerly enslaved parents in Louisiana in 1867, orphaned at seven, married at fourteen, widowed at twenty — looked at a country that offered her almost nothing and decided to build something anyway. She built a haircare empire. She built a factory. She built a national network of sales agents, most of them Black women, who she equipped with both product and economic opportunity. She said: “I had to make my own living and my own opportunity. Don’t sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them.” More than a century later, Black women across the DMV are living that philosophy at a scale that would astonish even Walker. They are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the United States. They are building IT firms in Waldorf, Maryland and wine subscription businesses that challenge the entire dynamics of a historically white industry. They are running salons in Prince George’s County that have become community institutions. They are launching consulting firms, healthcare practices, event companies, tech startups, and media brands — often simultaneously holding down full-time jobs, raising children, and supporting extended family. This blog is a celebration of what Black women entrepreneurs in the DMV are building — and an honest account of what they are building it against. The Numbers Are Extraordinary — and Still Not Getting Enough Attention Black women make up less than ten percent of the U.S. population. They have emerged as the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the country. According to the 2024 Wells Fargo Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report, Black women-owned businesses represent approximately 2.1 million enterprises — 52.1 percent of all Black-owned businesses in the United States. Between 2017 and 2020 alone, the number of Black women-owned businesses increased by nearly 20 percent, far exceeding the growth of women-owned businesses and Black-owned businesses overall. Then the pandemic hit — and rather than slowing that momentum, it accelerated it. Black women-owned businesses saw revenues surge 32.7 percent between 2019 and 2023, compared to 12.1 percent growth for all women-owned businesses during the same period. The 2025 Wells Fargo report confirmed that Black women-owned businesses are now a key engine of economic growth in the U.S., overseeing 2 million businesses that collectively employ more than 647,000 people. A Goldman Sachs survey released in May 2024 found that six in ten Black women view entrepreneurship as an important pathway to wealth creation — and that with fewer barriers, even more would start businesses to support themselves, their families, and their communities. In 2025 specifically, as federal DEI rollbacks eliminated chief diversity officer positions and left many Black women in corporate diversity roles suddenly jobless, a significant number responded by launching businesses. “What we find that Black women do is that they leave and start their own businesses,” said Mary-Frances Winters, author of Black Fatigue and an equity expert. The pattern is consistent: when corporate America closes a door, Black women build their own. The DMV’s Black Women Entrepreneurs — Building Community Through Business The DMV region has a particular concentration of Black women entrepreneur energy — driven by the presence of HBCUs, federal employment, a large and educated Black professional class, and a community that has always understood that economic self-determination is inseparable from community power. Tamika Chance of Waldorf, Maryland built T12 Technologies — an IT support firm — and grew it by learning to market herself more effectively, eventually winning new government contracts. “As a woman entrepreneur, it’s very difficult to have people speak to you and sometimes take you seriously in the services that you do,” Chance acknowledged. But she kept building anyway. Sherelle Holder, originally from Tobago, leads Karibbean Kinks — a premier salon in Prince George’s County, Maryland that has become far more than a hair business. It is a community space, a cultural anchor, and a place where the DMV’s Caribbean Diaspora community finds both excellent service and genuine belonging. “A simple beauty service can uplift the spirit,” Holder has said — and the community that has formed around her salon demonstrates exactly that. Aja Nelson opened Salon Journey at the height of the 2020 pandemic — a daring move at a moment of maximum uncertainty. Within its first year, the company scaled to multiple six figures. The salon’s in-house initiatives extend beyond styling into events, philanthropy, and community programs. Nelson’s approach has been recognized as reviving the cultivation of community at the Black hair salon — honoring a tradition in which the Black hair salon has always been as much community gathering place as beauty destination. Christi Hairston built CARRA Hosiery — a fashion brand that emerged from grief and love, founded in memory of her late sister Carra Lavonne. Every product pays tribute to her sister’s impeccable style. Founded in sorrow and built with purpose, CARRA Hosiery is a business that carries meaning beyond commerce. These stories share something important: they are not primarily about individual ambition. They are about community. Black women entrepreneurs in the DMV build businesses with their communities in mind — creating jobs, building gathering places, meeting needs that were not being met, and putting economic resources back into the communities they serve. The business is the vehicle. The community is the destination. Turning Corporate Exclusion Into Entrepreneurial Power One of the most consistent threads running through the stories of Black women entrepreneurs — in the DMV and nationally — is that corporate America’s failure to fully value, promote, and retain Black women talent has been, paradoxically, one of the most powerful drivers of Black women’s entrepreneurship. “I could only stay in corporate for ten years,” Mary-Frances Winters told the AFRO American Newspapers. “The microaggressions, the discrimination that I faced — when people see a Black woman, the assumption is you’re not as good, you’re not as smart, and you have to be twice as good.” That exhaustion — the constant proving,