Do you know a local black business in the Madison area that deserves some recognition? The Madison Black Chamber of Commerce is seeking nominations for its 3rd Annual Black Business Awards Recognition & Exhibition which will be held Feb. 20 at Madison College.
“Our goal is to get the public more engaged in this process. If you are supporting or have been to any of these businesses or really, really enjoy them … give them a plug,” Claude Gilmore, vice president of the Madison Black Chamber of Commerce, tells Madison365. “Put their name in for a nomination. And then we’re going to take all of that information in and use it as a guide to be able to make our selections.
“We’ve really broadened the categories because there are so many areas where people operate in – some are bricks and mortar, some are home-based, some operate in food carts. We want a whole array of businesses. That’s what we try to get at,” he adds.
Nomination categories for the 3rd Annual Black Business Awards Recognition & Exhibition include arts/entertainment, caterers, financial services, health and fitness, health care, home-based business, hospitality, personal care service, restaurant, and youth entertainment. More details on each of these categories and the actual nomination form can be found here.
“The theme for the 3rd Annual Black Business Awards Recognition & Exhibition is ‘An Evening of Excellence’ and we will be focusing on innovation and focusing on celebrating businesses,” Gilmore says. “We have so many people in our community that do wonderful things and the public does not know about them. We’d like to change that. The purpose of the evening is to celebrate that.”
The emcee of the 3rd Annual Black Business Awards Recognition & Exhibition will be Kiah Calmese Walker.
“[State Sen.] Lena Taylor will be the keynote speaker and will talk about the importance of black businesses and then we’re going to have a panel of distinguished black business owners who will tell their stories and how they got there,” Gilmore says.
Those panelists will include Brian Britt of Inspire Barber School, Bryan Foster, owner of Foster Funeral Homes, and Myra McNair of Anesis Therapy. There will also be several African-American-owned businesses set up at the event to promote their products and services.
But the biggest and most important part of the evening is celebrating the awardees. The Black Chamber is hoping to have a huge pool of nominations to choose from and are encouraging community members to get those nominations in by Friday, Feb. 10.
“These nominations are for everybody in the community to consider … any kind of black businesses who are doing the work – even if it’s just a smaller shop, but you have a little niche and people like coming there,” Gilmore says.
Gilmore adds that they are expecting about 250 people and that it “should be a great evening.”
“We want people to walk away from the event thinking ‘Hey, I can do that, too. I have the skills and I see these people doing that. This gives me some motivation.’ The event is during Black History Month so it will have an Afrocentric feel. We want people to feel regal. We want people to feel proud about what they have accomplished.”
The Madison Black Chamber of Commerce will host its 3rd Annual Black Business Awards Recognition & Exhibition Thursday, Feb. 20, 5-9 p.m. at Madison College Truax, 1701 Wright Street.
