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Photographer: Lelanie Foster for Bloomberg BusinessweekAurora James, the Founder Seeking Shelf Space
Nine retailers in the U.S. and Canada, including Macy’s Inc., Sephora USA Inc., and West Elm, have signed on to her pledge, which asks that they dedicate 15% of their shelves to products made by Black-owned businesses.
After the police killing of George Floyd in late May, James watched her inbox fill with emails and her Instagram feed flood with posts from brands decrying racism. She wanted more than platitudes. “I needed to reconcile the hurt I was feeling as a Black woman and also the fact that I’m a business owner,” says James, creative director and founder of shoe and handbag line Brother Vellies in Brooklyn, N.Y. “These two sides of me needed to converge.”
Days later she’d made it happen. She used Instagram to spread the idea of the pledge—15% because it’s roughly the share of Black people among the U.S. population—and tagged nine companies in her post to get their attention. Her targets were Barnes & Noble, Home Depot, marijuana dispensary MedMen, Net-a-Porter, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sephora, Target, Walmart, and Whole Foods, businesses she said were “built on Black spending power.”