Here’s why Black Wall Street Homecoming won’t be happening in Durham in 2020
After five consecutive years in downtown Durham, Black Wall Street Homecoming, an annual summit highlighting black entrepreneurs, won’t be held in 2020.
The leadership behind the organization said they are instead going to focus on personal endeavors and reflect on how to improve the event for a relaunch in 2021.
Started in 2015, Black Wall Street Homecoming was originally billed as a chance to gather investors and black startups from across the country in Durham during North Carolina Central University’s homecoming weekend. The event quickly grew from a one-day event to an annual three days of networking, talks and startup pitches for founders of color.
The overarching goal of the homecoming was a return to the mentality of the original Black Wall Street, when Durham had one of the largest concentrations of black wealth in the nation due to a thriving black banking sector that funded black enterprises across the city and North Carolina. By highlighting that history, the group wanted to shine a light on the disparities in funding that black-led startups often experience.
The summit was started by Jesica Averhart, Tobias Rose, Talib Graves-Manns and Dee McDougal, who were all active in Durham’s burgeoning startup scene at the time.
But after five years of running the organization on their own, the group wanted to take a break to pursue personal projects and revamp what Black Wall Street Homecoming could be in 2021, McDougal told The News & Observer Tuesday.
Since the group started the homecoming, McDougal noted, the conversation around disparities in funding between black founders and their white counterparts has received lots of attention. But, the gap hasn’t shrunk. Just 1% of venture-capital-backed companies are led by black founders, one recent study found.
With full-time jobs, the group didn’t feel they had had enough time to make changes to this year’s edition, McDougal added. So instead of just following the same template, they are taking the year to find a new model that might have more impact.
“[Homecoming] has been successful, but like every business owner, you have to pause and see if this is still what we need to be doing the same way,” McDougal said. “Is it more of the same or do we need to make tweaks?”
The last thing the group wants, she said, is for people to get used to hearing and doing the same thing every year. For example, she said, the group realized it needs to create more offerings for startups not in the tech space.
Even as Black Wall Street pauses, however, there will still be events in Durham targeted at black-led startups this October.
Since 2016, the American Underground has hosted the Google for Startups Exchange Program for Black Founders concurrently with Black Wall Street Homecoming. The Google summit brings promising black-founded startups to the city for a week of intense classes and meetings about how to overcome obstacles that many minority-led startups face.
Together, the two events brought dozens of black entrepreneurs and startups to the city every year, many for the first time.
Molly Demarest, general manager of the American Underground, said in an email that the Google-funded program would still take place in Durham this year. It will be the fifth year that it has been hosted at the American Underground.
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work. Learn more; go to bit.ly/newsinnovate
This story was originally published February 11, 2020 at 4:24 PM.
