Today's competitive economy has forced millions of workers to
think and behave like entrepreneurs. Thousands of African
American women are using this opportunity to start up their own
businesses. Innovative women are driving the small business
revolution and achieving their dreams at the same time. The 2007
Survey of Business Owners revealed that over 900,000 African
American women identified themselves as small business owners.
Spurred by the economic difficulties of the recession, the
number of female entrepreneurs has continued to rise over the
course of the last several years. This trend is bound to
continue, for the Guardian Life Small Business Research
Institute predicts that female-owned small businesses  will
account for one-third of all new jobs added to the economy by
2018. Black women may be leading the way in the small business
revolution, but they still face a number of unique challenges.
For example, while women own roughly one-third of small
businesses, they receive a much smaller slice of the