Before this year, jeweler Alicia Goodwins business Lingua Nigra averaged about one to three sales per day, and almost 1,000 sales per year. And then June 2020 happened.

Suddenly, Goodwin was receiving as many as 250 sales per day. Her Instagram audience nearly doubled. Her Etsy following quadrupled. She reached 1,000 sales in June alone.

On paper, the sudden boom in business would be thrilling for any small business owner. But in reality, its more complicated than that. Like so many other Black-owned businesses, Goodwins brand was thrust into the spotlight in June in response to a national uprising in support of Black lives, racial equality and an end to systemic racism, an uprising that began as a response to the death of George Floyd (and countless other innocent Black people) at the hands of police.