Governor Maura Healey welcomed Black business owners, entrepreneurs, and allies to the fifth Mass. Black Expo on Friday, organized by the Black Economic Council of Massachusetts.
Healey said Black wealth generation is a top priority for her administration that she learned about in depth while serving as chief of the Civil Rights Division in the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office.
“Through that work, I came to understand how the years of policymaking, lawmaking, zoning rules, regulations, discrimination — intentional and unintentional — led to incredible disparities right here in our house,” Healey said at the event at Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. “It was so eye-opening to me ... and I carry that up to this day.”
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Healey said she is excited about wealth generation among Black communities and stressed the importance of addressing barriers to wealth and closing the racial wealth gap. Not only would this greatly benefit Black communities in Massachusetts, Healey said, it would also grow the state’s economy significantly — one analysis estimates that closing the racial wealth gap could give the state economy a $25 billion boost over five years.
“The commitment to building Black wealth is our common denominator,” she said.
This year’s Mass. Black Expo is a three-day event that provides networking, resource-sharing, and wealth-building opportunities for the state’s Black economic sector. It is organized by BECMA, a nonprofit organization formed in 2015 by a group of Black professionals, entrepreneurs, and allies.
BECMA focuses on building and sustaining Black wealth through entrepreneurship, placement, commerce, and ownership. It was formed after a 2015 report by Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that found the median net worth of an African American family in the city to be only $8.
Nicole Obi, BECMA president and CEO, said BECMA changed its mission statement earlier this year to focus on building Black wealth — not only in a traditional sense, but beyond.
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“Wealth is health and clean water and financial security, political power, stable homes, quality education, Black joy,” Obi said Friday at the kickoff event.
Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll also spoke at the event, saying that when Black businesses thrive, the state’s economy thrives, too. Driscoll said companies with above-average diversity boast higher innovation than those with below-average diversity: a fact that proves building Black wealth will help Massachusetts, which has an innovation-driven economy.
“We’re committed to engaging and acting on the ideas that come out of conversations you will be having all weekend,” Driscoll said. “This expo ... is a moment in our state’s journey, not only for you to be able to connect and spark new ideas, but for our seeds to grow stronger as we move forward.”
For Nadia Fenton-Rahim, a mother of two who co-owns a smoothie vending machine business with her sister, this year’s expo was a chance to meet potential customers and continue building generational wealth. Fenton-Rahim said business ownership is one way Black families create generational wealth, and BECMA makes it attainable.
“When my kids see me build a business, they know they can start a business. It’s not a far-fetched thing,” Fenton-Rahim said. “It’s a good thing to see people do something for themselves and pass it down.”
This Mass. Black Expo is Fenton-Rahim’s second, and she said she’s inspired by other business owners who have grown since she last interacted with them last year.
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Latasha Hughes, a Worcester-based comedian and entertainment professional, said she uses networking events like this one to build community and grow the reach of her business. While she has attended events across the country, she said the Mass. Black Expo feels meaningful because it’s closest to home.
Hughes grew up in Central Massachusetts and remembered consulting her family’s “Black book” — a sort of Yellow Pages of Black-owned businesses — while visiting Boston. Events like these provide a similar service in today’s world, Hughes said, and give insight into Black-owned businesses in historically Black communities that suffer from gentrification and fragmenting.
“This is my hub,” Hughes said. “There’s a new world opening up because finances are available, education is happening.”
She added that she is excited about two panels in particular: one on funding and another on Black women in business and entrepreneurship.
“African American women have been in the spotlight as entrepreneurs, but we typically make far less than our counterparts,” Hughes said. “This is really about learning and passing down that knowledge, and finding out what it means to level up.”
The idea for the Mass. Black Expo was first conceived in 2019 when someone at a city hearing testified that they couldn’t find entrepreneurs of color to do business with, said Segun Idowu, a former BECMA president who’s now the city of Boston’s chief of economic opportunity and inclusion.
“Well, if the only reason you’re not giving a contract to the Black and brown people is that you can’t find them,” Idowu recalled saying, “then I’m going to put them all in one place and you can show up.”
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Each day of this year’s expo has a theme: The first focuses on business owners, the second on professionals and students, and the final on families and communities.
The expo will also host the Black-Owned Pavilion — an exhibition space showcasing hundreds of businesses from across Massachusetts — and a “climate and sustainability experience” where innovators can present their solutions to the climate crisis.
The expo’s panel topics range from building generational wealth to the intersection of artificial intelligence and entrepreneurship to making money as a social media influencer.
This year’s scheduled speakers include Mayor Michelle Wu, Senators Edward J. Markey and Elizabeth Warren, Representative Ayanna Pressley, national race scholar Andre M. Perry, and Earn Your Leisure media platform cofounders Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings.
The event closes on Sunday with A Celebration of Black Joy event at Grace by Nia in the Seaport, a BECMA booth at the Seaport x Black-Owned Bos. fall festival, and a Family Fun Fest at the Springfield Boys & Girls Club.
Vivi Smilgius can be reached at vivi.smilgius@globe.com. Follow her @viviraye.