Ida B. Wells proved something America still doesn’t want to admit. The “reason” they gave for lynching wasn’t the real reason. So she did what truth-tellers do She investigated. She read the white newspapers. She dug into the data. She followed the money. And what she found was horrifying. Black people weren’t being lynched only because of lies about “crime.” They were being lynched because they were building power. Opening grocery stores. Buying land. Starting businesses white folks couldn’t control. Economic competition was a death sentence. So Ida picked up her pen and went to war. Not with vibes. With receipts. She ran the numbers. Named names. Published the truth in pamphlets like Southern Horrors and The Red Record. Cold detail. No comfort. No softening. Then she took that truth on the road. Boats. Trains. Packed rooms. In the 1890s, she toured the U.S. and Britain, speaking about lynching and Black economic terror. And here’s the part people skip: She made money doing it Those lectures and publications earned her what could arguably be worth over seven figures in today’s dollars across her career. A Black woman. Talking about racist violence. Getting paid to tell the truth. In the 1890s. And she did it while raising a family in Chicago. Building with her husband Ferdinand L. Barnett — a prominent Black lawyer, journalist, and later the first Black assistant state’s attorney in Illinois. Chicago roots. Law. Media. Money. Movement work. Ida was doing all of that before any of us. But the part that really sits in my chest? She traveled with help. She organized her life so she could mother, write, travel, and speak. She brought support with her when she hit the road. Long before anybody had language like “traveling nanny,” she was living the truth: Black women do not have to do everything alone. Now let me make this personal. I’m from Chicago. I’m a lawyer. I’m a speaker. I travel with a nanny so I can do my work and raise my baby without burning out. And yes—people have told me:

Mary “Stagecoach Mary” Fields got fired from a church job after a gunfight in the yard. Not a warning. Not a write‑up. A gunfight with a man who disrespected her—and the church told HER to go - wild! Most people would’ve taken that as a sign to sit down and be smaller. Mary didn’t. She tried starting her own spot—a restaurant where folks could eat, drink, and be together. It didn’t work out. Money was tight, and the business failed in less than a year. But she kept going. Then, in her 60s, she went after something even bigger: a contract to carry the U.S. mail through rough Montana country. Welcome to Day 10 of Deleted History: Black Women Entrepreneurs They Prayed You’d Never Learn About Men lined up for that job. It was dangerous and it paid. So they held a competition. They had to hitch up a team of horses and get ready to roll, fast. Mary stepped up, stood right next to the men—and beat them. She literally had to out‑work and out‑fight men in that contest to win the route. That’s how she became “Stagecoach Mary.” Through snowstorms, wolves, and lonely mountain roads, she showed up every day with a gun on her hip and a cigar in her mouth, making sure people got their mail. No fancy title. No perfect plan. Just grit, courage, and follow‑through. She opened a laundry. She cooked. She took care of kids at her own daycare. She kept finding ways to earn and to serve, even when things didn’t go right the first time. That’s the energy behind Black Women Sell Live. You don’t have to shrink, hide, or play small ever again. Get on the waitlist for tickets and join 380+ women who already said they want in. Join the waitlist here: https://lnkd.in/gNc6R-Pg

She funded a revolution with fried chicken and pound cake. Not because she had a platform. Not because she had a title. Because she refused to let fear have the last word. Day 8 of 28: Georgia Gilmore Most people know Rosa Parks. Almost nobody knows the woman who kept the Montgomery Bus Boycott alive financially — from her kitchen. Georgia was a cook. A domestic worker. She testified in favor of the boycott in open court, and they fired her for it. They thought taking her income would shut her up. Instead, she built a new one. She organized “The Club From Nowhere” — a covert network of Black women who cooked, baked, and sold meals all over Montgomery. Then delivered the cash in unmarked envelopes to boycott leaders. No names. No records. No trace. That money kept Black workers moving for 381 days while they refused to ride segregated buses. And here’s what hit me: Georgia didn’t wait for permission. She didn’t wait for a title. She didn’t wait for someone to recognize what she brought to the table. She built the table. Out of flour, lard, and nerve. That reminded me of something I see constantly. Brilliant Black women — credentialed, excellent at what they do — waiting. Waiting for the right time. Waiting to be “ready.” Waiting for someone to recognize their genius. And without realizing it, that waiting doesn’t make you more careful. It makes you shrink. You shrink the pricing. Shrink the offer. Shrink the ask. Protect yourself in the name of “playing it smart.” But really… it’s fear dressed up as professionalism. Georgia didn’t have a sales system or a CRM. She had a skill, a network of women who believed, and the audacity to move money where it mattered. If she could turn a cast-iron skillet into a war chest for a citywide boycott in the 1950s… What’s your excuse in 2026? The gap was never ability. Black women have been the most resourceful operators in every room, every movement, every generation. The gap is infrastructure. Systems. A room that matches your level.

A white man with a napkin idea gets funded faster than a Black woman with $100 billion in collective revenue. That’s not a funding gap. That’s a design. Rose Meta Morgan understood that. In the 1940s. She needed $40,000 to open her dream salon. Walked into a bank and asked for $25,000 — not even the full amount. Shrunk her own ask just to look “reasonable.” They still said no. So she did what Black women have always done. She found another way. She went to a banker she’d been quietly advising on Harlem real estate — for free — and leveraged that relationship into a loan. Then called on friends and family to close the gap. Not venture capital. Relationship capital. The only capital the system lets us use. She took that money and signed a lease on a rundown Harlem mansion so abandoned people called it a haunted house. On opening day, 10,000 people showed up. In the rain. Rose Meta Morgan’s House of Beauty. Three stories. 15,000 square feet. 25+ operators. Haircare. Facials. A charm school. A wig salon. The largest Black beauty salon in the world. But here’s what really matters: She didn’t just build a business. She built a payroll. Nearly 3,000 people over her career. Most of them Black women. She gave them jobs when corporate America wouldn’t give them an interview. A profession when the world said they were only worth domestic work. Then she did something that still makes people uncomfortable. She went from hair to capital. In 1965, Rose Morgan co-founded Freedom National Bank — New York City’s only Black-owned commercial bank. She invested her own money. Became a major shareholder. And every Thursday night, that bank held credit education sessions. Teaching Black families how to protect their credit. How to qualify for mortgages. How to become lendable in a system designed to exclude them. Not just “we’ll lend to you.” But “we’ll teach you how to never need to beg again.” From five dollars a week in a rented chair to co-founding a bank. And most people have never heard her name.

"She's too old. She's too poor. She's starting too late." That's what the world said about a 59-year-old formerly enslaved woman heading West during the Gold Rush. Clara Brown didn't argue. She just built a million-dollar portfolio anyway. Born enslaved around 1800, Clara was sold multiple times and separated from her husband and four children. In her mid-50s, she finally gained her freedom — and did something most people half her age were too scared to do: She went West. In 1859, Clara crossed the plains cooking for 26 men to pay her way. When she reached Colorado, she didn't pan for gold. She washed the clothes of the men who did. Clara opened Colorado's first commercial laundry, then stacked: cooking, boarding, midwife work. She treated small, consistent cash flows like seed capital. Within a few years: $10,000 in savings (close to $1 million today), 16 lots in Denver, 7 houses in Central City, and mines across Colorado. They called her the "Angel of the Rockies" — not because she was soft, but because she fed a town, funded a community, and still played the long game on wealth. While building that portfolio, she also relocated at least 16 formerly enslaved people to Colorado and helped them start over. Clara Brown is the blueprint: "Business is how I build wealth. Wealth is how I buy freedom — for me and for other people." The Angel of the Rockies Method™ 1️⃣ Serve the rush, don't chase it She served the gold chasers — and used that money to buy assets. 2️⃣ Turn "small" money into big moves Laundry wasn't glamorous. It funded a real estate empire. 3️⃣ Let your values drive your investments Impact and income weren't separate lanes. They were the same road. 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝟓 𝐨𝐟 𝐃𝐄𝐋𝐄𝐓𝐄𝐃 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐇𝐈𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐑𝐘: 𝟐𝟖 𝐁𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐤 𝐰𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐧 𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐩𝐫𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫. If you're a Black woman expert, go to https://lnkd.in/gNc6R-Pg and join the Black Women Sell Live 2026 waitlist — the only conference that teaches the strategies these 28 women used, updated for today's contracts, stages, and boardrooms.