We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeremiah Chapman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Jeremiah thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I came up with the idea when I noticed Black news outlets and organizations hardly communicate and see each other as competitors. I wanted to centralize Black news and ways for folks to take action from said news so I figured the best way to do that was a mobile app. As an activist by trade I felt it important to have social justice and the greater good as our mainstay. We are not driven by profits but rather connecting folks across the diaspora together. I quickly figured out how to develop an app without code by using my previous knowledge building a websites as the basis. It wasn’t long before I realized that other Black businesses struggled with developing sites so we decided to donate beta apps and websites to a select few businesses.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I originally got involved in activism in my own way back in middle school raising awareness about my uncle Edward Chapman who was wrongly incarcerated and later exonerated in North Carolina. The inherit feeling that there were injustices in the world and being one of few Black students at my school in Massachusetts inspired me to take action. I decided to go to an HBCU (Johnson C. Smith Univ) where I met so many other people from both similar and completely different backgrounds and got entrenched in local politics in Charlotte, NC. At the time they were shutting down predominantly Black schools and I wanted to get involved so I organized my classmates to volunteer at some of the schools. I quickly landed in politics more formally getting Congresswoman Alma Adams elected in 2014 as her Field Director and eventually transitioned to being a federal caseworker in Congress for 2 years. Seeing the disparities faced I decided I wanted to do more and help develop the next generation of leaders.

I was raised in the Northeast but have roots in North Carolina. My mother is a southern Black woman and my father was an immigrant from Ecuador that came here when he was 14 years old. I identify as an Afro-Latino despite years of suppressing my roots due to my fathers absence in my life. I look at my mixed background as a blessing now after years of trying to heal from feelings of rejection and resentment. I think my background has allowed me to look at facilitating change from a global perspective and relate to people from various backgrounds.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I was born premature and suffered from intestinal issues. It was unclear early on as to whether I would survive but I did.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I’ve had to pivot in my career from Government work back grassroots advocacy and then again to business. My experience as an organizer prepared me for these shifts albeit how challenging they have been.

Contact Info:

• Website: Blackcultureweekly.com
• Instagram: Aspiration_unlimited
• Facebook: Black culture weekly
• Linkedin: Jeremiah Chapman
• Twitter: Blackcultureweekly
• Youtube: Aspiration:Unlimited LLC