AKRON, Ohio — It’s National Black Business Month, and Summit County Black Chamber of Commerce and several other community partners are hosting a vendor-style marketplace this Sunday to give local businesses a chance to shine and reach the community in a different way.
“It’s great to be able to just be there and be a support system for them,” said Misty Beasley, the Vice President & COO of Summit County Black Chamber of Commerce.
According to a 2025 report from Pew Research Center, Black-owned businesses have grown significantly in the U.S. in recent years.
But data collected in 2022 showed the majority of Black-owned businesses made up only about 3% of all US firms that year.
Meanwhile, experts said White majority-owned businesses made up 84%, or the greatest share of U.S. classifiable firms in 2022.
This is why Beasley invites the community to support the chamber’s first major event, The Black Exchange: A Marketplace Experience, this Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Akron Urban League.
“It’s a one-time event. But we want to build lasting relationships, so you might come and meet somebody that you can do business with six months, a year, three years down the line, and so it’s about building a community that supports each other economically,” said Beasley.
Beasley added she hopes to help black businesses, like Joyful Interactions, find exposure, generational wealth and economic empowerment.
“The resources that they have supplied have gotten me in rooms that I have never gotten in by myself,” said Bianca Harris, the owner of Joyful Interactions.
Harris said she opened Joyful Interactions, an Akron-based greeting card store and gift shop, to have people covered for every occasion after she said she couldn’t find what she needed during a difficult time.
“My sister passed away [from] diabetes [in] March 2023. When I was going looking for greeting cards, I found nothing that spoke to me,” said Harris. “Everything we had; we just put into it so from there we opened Oct. 1, 2024.”
While Harris’s passion is what made her vision a reality, she said she’s grateful for the Summit County Black Chamber of Commerce’s help, too.
“I could feel myself saying I can do it. I can do it, knowing that there was so much missing in our community,” said Harris.
