Bookstore owner goes viral after tweeting about being a Black business owner

A Virginia bookstore owner saw herpopularity grow on Twitter after she tweetedabout being a Black business owner.On June 2, Deshanta Hairston, of Martinsville, shareda moving post about the challenges of many Blackbusiness owners on the social media platform.“Can you imagine, I refrained from putting[Black] owned in my bio for years in fear of losingout on potential white customers”.“Well I am indeed [Black] and this is mystore and I will be screaming it fromthe mountain tops moving forward”.The tweet immediately went viral, receiving over300,000 likes and more than 3,000 comments.“Bravo!” one fellow Twitter user wrote in response.“Own it.

Any white person who won’t patronize yourbiz because you’re [Black] doesn’t deserve thehonor of shopping with your store”.In an interview with WSLS, Hairston revealedthat she initially had reservations aboutsharing her tweet because she didn’twant to lose any customers.Amid widespread protests against police brutalityand systemic racism toward the Black community,however, she felt compelled to let her followersknow what it meant to be a Black business owner."if more Black people could speak on theirexperience and just get the conversationstarted ... it gives people a better understandingof why we feel the way that we do”.Since her tweet, Hairston said shehas seen her Twitter follower countgrow from 150 to over 30,000