Every August, cities, chambers of commerce, and corporations mark National Black Business Month. Far fewer people can name the two men who created it: Frederick E. Jordan Sr., a San Francisco engineer, and John William Templeton, a historian and journalist, who launched the observance in 2004.
Their goal was to spotlight the systemic barriers Black entrepreneurs face and to champion their contributions to their communities and the broader economy. “Our research indicates that there should be 2.5 million African Americans in business, and we only have half that many,” Templeton said of the gap the founders set out to close.
Twenty-two years later, the numbers tell a story of real momentum. The most recent U.S. Census Bureau Annual Business Survey counted 194,585 majority Black-owned employer firms in 2022, up from 124,004 in 2017 — and their combined revenue jumped 66 percent over that period, from $127.9 billion to $211.8 billion. Those firms employed roughly 1.6 million people. Counting sole proprietors and other businesses without employees, the total is far larger: about 3.6 million Black-owned nonemployer firms, according to Census data.
The gap Jordan and Templeton identified has not closed. Majority Black-owned businesses still made up only about 3 percent of classifiable U.S. firms in 2022 and roughly 1 percent of gross revenue, in a country where about 14 percent of the population is Black. Access to capital remains a documented obstacle: Federal Reserve small business credit survey research found Black business owners were 10 percentage points more likely than white owners to be denied all of the funding they requested during the pandemic.
But the growth trend is the story this August — and Black women are driving it. Black women are the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the country, with Black women-owned businesses growing 13 percent in 2025 and their revenues rising 6 percent, according to Wells Fargo’s latest Impact of Women-Owned Businesses report.
Some of the milestones this year run deep. E.E. Ward Moving & Storage of Columbus, Ohio — founded in 1881 and recognized as the oldest Black-owned business in the United States — marks 145 years in operation in 2026.
Templeton remains at the helm of the observance he co-founded, launching what he calls the 23rd annual Journal of Black Innovation National Black Business Month this year. Jordan, whose firm F.E. Jordan Associates has been described as the largest Black-owned engineering firm in the country, built his career after earning engineering degrees from Howard and Stanford.
For readers, the founders’ original prescription still applies: the month exists not just to be observed, but to be acted on — by patronizing, investing in, and contracting with Black-owned businesses, in August and beyond.
Drafted by News Observed Editorial AI, human reviewed and published.