A Revival of Black Business, and Pride, in Brooklyn

By Richard Morgan

A black man has been president of the United States. So why, then, do so many find it hard to believe that a black woman owns a yarn shop in brownstone Brooklyn?

That is a question that Felicia Eve, the owner of the yarn shop, String Thing Studio in Park Slope, has confronted regularly. “It’s along the same lines of, ‘Oh, you live in Park Slope?’” Ms. Eve said. “Or, ‘Oh, you own a brownstone in Park Slope?’ Or, ‘Oh, you have three kids in private school?’”

On hand to hear Ms. Eve’s story were Cynthia Gordy Giwa and Glenn Alan, who run the website Black-Owned Brooklyn. They brought The New York Times along on a recent Saturday morning as they visited a handful of shops in Brooklyn.

Ms. Giwa, 36, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, had a career as a White House correspondent and political reporter for black-focused publications including Essence and The Root; she is now the marketing director for ProPublica. Mr. Alan, 30, of Crown Heights, is a regional operations manager for a popular fast-fashion chain. 

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Source: The New York Times (via Empire Report New York)