Angela K. Chambers is the President and co-founder of Tulsa Black Owned Business Network Inc. (Tulsa BOBN) in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and she is passionate about supporting and forming a close-knit community with Black/African American business owners.
Angela was nice enough to take some time to answer a few questions about Tulsa BOBN and its important role in the local business community.
Hi Angela, can you tell us a bit about your background?
Hi there. I’m quite proud of the fact I got the chance to grow up in McAlester, Oklahoma and still consider myself part of that community, despite moving on to Tulsa in the 90’s to pursue my early entrepreneurial career.
How did the Tulsa Black Owned Business Network (BOBN) get started?
My amazing co-founder Ojo Bailey was once questioned about Black and African American business owners in the Tulsa area. Starting as simply an effort to list all of the black owned businesses in Tulsa, Ojo and I teamed up and talked to everyone we could and asked them to give us some information about their businesses and links to their website.
Once we collected all the information, we couldn’t just use it once and forget it. We quickly had the idea to form a mutually-supportive community of Black/African American business owners all around Tulsa.
That was where Ojo and I cemented our business relationship – and the rest is history!
Why do you believe it’s so important to support Black/African American local businesses?
Any Black or African American person who has dipped their feet into the business world will understand that it’s not always easy. Heightened race relations issues in the US driving more Black and African American’s to become business owner has increased and continues to do so. However, it would be dishonest to say that there are not holdouts of entrenched racism in the business world that can undermine the sincere efforts of hard-working Black and African American entrepreneurs.
TulsaBOBN isn’t about favouring Black and African American business owners over others – it is simply about creating a mutually supportive environment for business owners who share a racial/cultural heritage here in the United States, more specifically Tulsa, Oklahoma aka Black Wallstreet. The work we have done with Black and African American business owners in Tulsa has helped in creating a thriving local business community – which the entire Tulsa community benefits.
What are some of the types of business you work with in the Tulsa area?
We work with everyone. TulsaBOBN has many black-owned restaurants, bars, nightclubs, cafes, retail stores, construction agencies, beauty salons and much more.
What are some of the ways you assist businesses in your network?
Where to begin? We publish a monthly Tulsa Owned Black Business Guide that advertises and promotes Black and African American owned businesses in Tulsa. It contains relevant articles and highlights a standout business in the local Tulsa community.
We also provide a comprehensive Preferred Business List – Certified Businesses at a fixed rate for Black and African American business owners. We specialize in digital marketing and helping push businesses to new levels of exposure by leveraging social media channels like Facebook and YouTube.
Thank you to Angela for answering our questions!
You can follow up with Angela K. Chambers at https://tulsabobn.com
