50 Companies Founded by Black Entrepreneurs
By Peter Richman, Stacker News
On 2/26/21 at 8:00 PM EST
The entrepreneurial spirit is a cornerstone of American culture, but history books too often leave out the extensive contributions of minorities and women. In honor of Black History Month, Stacker is shining a light on 50 Black entrepreneurs who made a lasting influence on the business world and, often in the process, civil rights from the Revolutionary War to today.
The abrupt end to slavery in 1865 following the conclusion of the Civil War freed about 4 million people but left them without a clear trajectory forward. Black Codes afforded freed people the right to sue in court and marry but stipulated other discriminatory rules like keeping them from serving on juries or in state militias.
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Charles “Chuck” H. James III, who chaired one of the nation’s oldest Black-owned businesses, has died at 62.
Mr. James, who lived in the Chicago area for extended periods, died last month at his Atlanta home as a result of heart problems, according to his sister Sarah Irby.
The fourth generation in his family to run C.H. James & Co., a Charleston, West Virginia, company founded by his great-grandfather in the 1880s, Mr. James oversaw a business that supplied produce to many restaurants, schools, grocery stores and hospitals in the Mountain State. He was credited with diversifying the company’s holdings.