Black entrepreneurs in Atlantic Canada are often concentrated in sectors like food, hair care, and retail, and the reasons why are widely debated. For many, the journey begins in small kitchens, community salons, and home-based studios, producing goods that are deeply rooted in culture and tradition. Some observers point to market size, while others cite limited access to start-up funds as reasons for the lack of growth seen in Black-owned businesses. Researchers at the Atlantic Hub of the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH) suggest that the real story is more complex and that it reveals deeper truths about what shapes growth in the ecosystem.

Some legacies are so powerful they continue to open doors long after their time. For Mary Ann Shadd Cary (1823–1893) to be Black and a woman, in the mid-19th century, meant that your opportunities were sharply limited. And yet she challenged every barrier, redefining what it meant to be an entrepreneur, an educator, and a community leader. As the North America’s first Black woman newspaper publisher and one of the few Black women entrepreneurs of her time, Shadd Cary built a foundation that still shapes our understanding of Black media and entrepreneurship today.

What Delali Adiamah is doing in Vancouver’s food scene is unlike anything the city has seen before, breaking through the city’s anti-social reputation and bringing strangers together over African food. The founder of Dehl’s Gourmet Foods had been dabbling with this idea of creating a new kind of culinary experience similar to what she was seeing in London and New York.

This July 2023, the Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH) sat down with Allen Alexandre, a social entrepreneur and Founding Director of The Afro-Canadian Cultural Centre of Montreal (CCAM), to explore issues faced by Black artists and what his organization has been doing to address them. As he embarks on a mission to celebrate and elevate the vibrancy of the Black community, he is also championing the ideals of multiculturalism and showcasing Black culture as Canadian culture.