I’m a prime example of what can be accomplished. Make sure that you are putting yourself first always.Ĭontinue to advocate for yourself, for the rest of us as a cannabis community.ĭon’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do this. These are the people that were my heroes growing up.ĭo you have any advice for other BIPOC entrepreneurs who are trying to get businesses off the ground?įor any future owners or operators, all I can say is just stay diligent. King, minister Louis Farrakhan, Elijah Muhammad, all of the pillars in the Black community. I grew up in a Muslim home, so my mom is very pro-Black. King was somebody that was spoken of very highly. We have to be involved in everything that’s going on.Īnd for me, Dr. He wants us to be able to live together in harmony and be at peace with each other as a human race.Īnd, in order for African Americans to be respected, then we have to have financial stability. Just psychologically, the roller coaster that I went through emotionally, and just being in the dark for 3½ years, just literally not knowing what’s going to happen with my future, because I put everything into this because I wanted it so badly.ĭo you feel like you and other successful social equity entrepreneurs represent the type of change that Dr. That was super tough.īut I can honestly say that the most difficult part was not knowing. So, a year and a half … we’re paying rent on a commercial building that had no return on investment. There’s a ton of stuff I could say, like the fact that we had to have real estate in place before we could even get the doors open, and then COVID happened. What has been the most difficult part of all this? It was my dream to be a part of my community and do something that creates generational wealth for my family. I have so much more to offer this world than high fashion. I didn’t want to die and have anybody stand up and say, “She could sell the hell out of some clothes.” Just to achieve that is a dream for me, just being in a place where I have financial stability. I come from a place where there were dead bodies in my alley, where I felt like I could possibly never make it out of there. And I really want to be able to show them. So I have a ton of people that have eyes on me. For me, it’s about being a pillar in my community. People like me are getting access to equity licensing and becoming business owners.Īnd that, I think, really turns on a light bulb for a lot of people about who we are and what we’re trying to do.ĭo you consider yourself a success story in social equity, just having gotten a store open and operational? People are getting pardoned from prison early. That’s our opportunity to educate them about Sixty Four & Hope and what the name means itself: Legalization of cannabis with Proposition 64, and now there’s a ton of hope wrapped around that. It’s slow, which is to be expected with a new business.īut we have a lot of traffic that goes by and a lot of people that stop in. It’s been slow, especially with COVID-19, and everything going on in the world right now. How has business been since you opened in September? But you know, here we are, four months in and you know, we’re making it happen. It almost kind of felt like it wasn’t going to happen for a while. I stuck with it, social equity, the process and everything that happened within the last three years. It’s cannabis, something I’m super passionate about. It’s a retail store, something that I’m passionate about. When social equity was presented to me by 4thMvmt, I said, “Wow, this is such a great opportunity.” That’s where I got my passion for wanting to be a business owner and wanting to help people. And I kind of got a lot of PTSD from that, and cannabis is something that I turned to as a decompression tool.Ī lot of my friends went to jail for cannabis. ![]() ![]() I grew up in a really tough neighborhood. ![]() And they were the parent company of Sixty Four & Hope and have been super supportive of my journey. I was presented with the opportunity to be a social equity applicant through 4thMvmt. I had no cannabis background whatsoever outside of from a consumer standpoint. How did you get into the cannabis industry? Day to discuss her professional journey and how King’s legacy helped propel her forward. MJBizDaily spoke with Allen in advance of Martin Luther King Jr. ![]() company that partners with and invests in entrepreneurs from underserved communities.Īllen is optimistic she’s creating generational wealth for her family – while giving back to her community through a local nonprofit she founded, ProjectC3: Culture, Community, Compassion. Today, Allen is the owner of a franchise location of Sixty Four & Hope after winning a social equity license with the help of 4thMvmt, an L.A.
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