The Only One in the Room: Black Entrepreneurs of the Flint Hills

Sheila Ellis-Glasper had been active in multiple business groups around the greater Manhattan, Kansas, area, but eventually, “I grew pretty tired of being the only one in the room like me,” she said. When starting their own business, she and her husband, Jermain Glasper, had faced plenty of the challenges typical for Black entrepreneurs, notably lack of access to capital or business resources and little mentorship. “We bootstrapped our own social media and branding company, navigating hurdles around securing loans and scaling the business without much external support.”