Grant puts spotlight on inequities in Black-owned businesses

The COVID-19 pandemic is taking a terrible toll on America’s small businesses, but nowhere has the impact been greater than on Black-owned businesses.

According to one recent study, there were more than 1 million Black-owned businesses in the U.S. in February 2020, but by mid-April, 440,000, or 41 percent, of those businesses had closed their doors. Whereas only 17 percent of white-owned businesses closed during the same time period, according to the same study — a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.