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In 2015, Josei Harris started a spa in the living room of her home in Washington D.C.'s Congress Heights neighborhood, a predominantly Black community in the city's eighth ward.

The fourth-generation D.C. native named her business Black Bella DC. But for years, she has operated a location in nearby Lanham, Maryland because she couldn't afford prime retail space in her hometown. Last year, though, Harris's dream of finally opening a store in Washington came true.

Black Bella Spa is one of the 13 Black-owned businesses in the 22,000-square-foot Sycamore & Oak retail village in Congress Heights. Launched around Juneteenth in 2023 with the support of the Emerson Collective, an organization founded by Laurene Powell Jobs that invests in entrepreneurs, Sycamore & Oak ensures that entrepreneurs in the incubator receive affordable rent and guidance in everything from marketing to supply chain to hiring to paying business taxes.

Now, after years of commuting out of the city to run her business, Harris can use her electric bike to take the 11-minute ride from her home to her 200-square-foot store at Sycamore & Oak, where she leads a four-person team that offers facials, massages, and other services. In all, the village provides more than 100 jobs to local residents.

"Washington D.C. is my city," says the 50-year-old aesthetician. "This is my opportunity to create jobs and resources in the community where I live."

Even though Black consumers' economic power is expected to expand from about $910 billion in consumption in 2019 to $1.7 trillion in 2030, Black people are more likely than other racial groups to live in........

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