As a millionaire who grew up on the poverty line, Bridgid Coulter Cheadle knows that money is power, so she decided to create Blackbird House, a collective and physical space where women of color can connect and do business.
In this episode of Our America: In The Black Conversations, Cheadle spoke with entrepreneur Arlan Hamilton about how she used her experience as an interior designer to build Blackbird, a luxury office space in a Los Angeles warehouse. She created the space knowing that Black women like herself and other women of color typically have less access to entrepreneurial opportunities.
“It’s a space that’s focused on women of color and open to allies, and often times we’re underfunded and undervalued,” Cheadle said. “I wanted to make sure you come in and know that no detail was left unaddressed, no texture that I find beautiful wasn’t brought into the space, and that you belong and you deserve this.”
She sees Blackbird, which provides opportunities and equal opportunities for disadvantaged women in their business ventures, as a place of joy and opportunity.
“We’re all doing incredible work in our silos around the country and around the world, but when we come together and you look at us in the room, it’s one organism,” she explained. “It’s this living organism that we all feel. We’re in this profound time. And because of the work that our predecessors have done and our trailblazers and our role models in our parents, we are the ones they’ve been waiting for.”
Watch Episode 7 of Our America: In the Black Conversations with Arlan Hamilton and Bridgid Coulter Cheadle now in the video player above or wherever you stream this channel on Roku, Apple TV, FireTV or Google TV.
Luke Richards and Alexis Johnson-Fowlkes contributed to this report.
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