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"We, As Businesswomen, Must Answer Our Civic Calling" By Shonda Scott
By Contributing Fashion & Business Writer Shonda Scott
As a fourth-generation business owner, I was raised with the understanding that business and civic duties were synonymous. And I think if we take an honest look at the essence of civic duties and business we find that, at the core, it's best when they both work in concert.
In the 1920s, when my great grandfather — son of an enslaved Black woman and a white slave owner — became a real estate developer in Colorado building homes for Black people in the segregated Rocky Mountains, his business passion fueled his civic duty to help those who had been disenfranchised to thrive.
If not for business owners like my great grandfather and owners of Colorado's historic Winks Lodge (the only Black resort in the western United States during the middle of the 20th Century), many Black people, including celebrities, would not have had a safe place to stay during their travels in the Jim Crow era. It was through their businesses that many people of color were able to create and promote their political agenda.
