PRINCE GEORGE'S COUNTY, Md. — A new bill aims to give Black business owners some financial help in Prince George's County. District 7 councilmember Krystal Oriadha just introduced new legislation that will create a Black start-up fund, providing money to help Black-owned businesses expand or get off the ground.
"We have the Economic Development Corporation, it already exists. We have dedicated funds that are all about building local businesses, helping them to expand and investing in startups, but what we don't have is a concentrated effort that says we're going to support Black business owners. And so that's what this legislation does. It says 25% of that fund needs to be dedicated to businesses that are 51% or more Black-owned," Oriadha said.
Oriadha also launched a digital green book highlighting local Black-owned businesses, movies, music and influencers.
"We're trying to put this database together that will look at Black content creators, business owners, restaurants, so people can shop, eat Black, listen Black," Oriadha explained.
"One of the things we realized, especially inside of my district, because we do have some business owners in Prince George's County, but if I wanted to focus inside of the Beltway... One, there was not a lot of businesses inside of the Beltway. And then there were not a lot of businesses that were owned by people that look like me. That really stirred this conversation to me of what could I tangibly do to fix that," she said.
The Black Start-up Fund would dedicate grant or loan money to Black-owned businesses. Oriadha said it doesn’t involve coming up with any additional money. This is taking a chunk from resources that already exist and spending them on Black-owned businesses. The bill would dedicate 25% of funds to businesses that are majority Black-owned.
Oriadha says it’s about making sure county leaders are being intentional about building black wealth in the county.
"It doesn't cost us any additional funds. It's just saying this fund exists, but now we want to focus on promoting and supporting Black businesses. A lot of times when we look at these different resources, we don't see a lot of people of color utilizing them. We might not see that they know about the fund, so creating this opportunity to say, we want to be intentional. We want a chunk of this resources to build Black wealth here in Prince George's County, and we're going to hold ourselves accountable to it," Oriadha said.
The bill was just introduced this week so next will be committee meetings before going up for a final vote.
Oriadha will also be hosting her “Black on the Block” Black History Month Celebration on Feb. 24 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at 4217 Silver Hill Road in Suitland, MD.