Black Enterprize: Stories of Black Success

Tracing two centuries of Black entrepreneurs and their generational contributions.

With over seventy stories of innovators in architecture, beauty, cinema, construction, employment, farming, finance, insurance, investment, manufacturing, media, music, pharmaceuticals, publishing, science, technology, and many more, Black Enterprize provides a comprehensive look into the stories of rule breakers and change makers.

Featuring cultural icons of their day such as Marcus Garvey, Madam C.J. Walker, Reginald F. Lewis, Berry Gordy, and many more, Miller provides insight into how entrepreneurship helped shape a new life and community spirit for embattled Black people across the globe during decades of fierce racism, segregation, and exclusion. These entrepreneurs went on to attain lofty heights despite the headwinds they faced.

Black Enterprize highlights the remarkable achievements of individuals such as early Hollywood producer Oscar Micheaux, traffic light creator Garrett Morgan, and a buyer of one of the first motor cars in New York City -- Madam C.J. Walker. It also profiles presidential advisers like George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington, as well as Granville T. Woods, who competed with Thomas Edison to create the hottest inventions of the day. Black entrepreneurs not only played a formative part of Black culture but also laid the groundwork for our contemporary cultural landscape.