For one Wesley Chapel teenage entrepreneur, every Friday is Black Friday.
In conjunction with her online store selling T-shirts that promote positive messages for black teenagers, Janiah Hinds also posts a video every week of someone who is important in black history. She begins each video with โWelcome to Black Fridayโฆโ
The 15-year-old, who lives in Country Walk and will soon start her junior year at Wesley Chapel High, hasnโt missed a Friday since she first came up with the idea last fall.
She says it started with brainstorming in her room one day.
โI thought of stereotypes of African Americans and I wrote them down,โ she says. When she showed them to her dad, an entrepreneur and business coach himself, he encouraged her to put the list on a T-shirt to sell.
Janiahโs online store now carries T-shirts that dispel those stereotypes, plus three additional T-shirt designs that celebrate being black. For example, one popular shirt says, โBlack is ambitious, powerful, intelligent, resilient, hardworking.โ
She also created a limited edition design for Juneteenth that sold out.
Janiah named her business โSlay It Proud,โ which she says means to โrock the message proudlyโ and also is a tribute to the song, โSay it loud! Iโm black and Iโm proudโ by the late, great R&B superstar James Brown.
She says itโs also a nod to her 13-year-old sister, Joelle, who also is a young entrepreneur herself. Joelle started a business selling press-on nails, called โSlay All Day Nails,โ last year.
โWhen I was younger, I never would have thought I would have my own business selling T-shirts,โ says Janiah, โbut Iโm glad that I have this opportunity and that I can use my platform to spread black history.โ
Thatโs what Janiah says is her true passion โ sharing black history with teenagers and others.
So, she came up with the idea to post the weekly videos. With the self-imposed responsibility of posting so much new content, she says she now takes suggestions and also does quite a bit of research of her own.
In the past couple of months, sheโs posted videos about Ida B. Wells, a prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the early 1900s; a famous โhypocrisy speechโ delivered on July 4, 1852 by Frederick Douglass; as well as one about the inventor of the Super Soaker water gun in the 1980s, Lonnie Johnson.
โA favorite person of mine would be Shirley Chisholm,โ Janiah says. โShe was the first African American woman in Congress. When she (ran) for president of the US, she wasnโt allowed to be on the stage and debate (against the other candidates) because she was black. She had to take legal action to be allowed to participate.โ
In 1972, not only was Chisholm was the first black person to run for a major party nomination for U.S. President, she was also the first woman ever to run for the presidential nomination for the Democratic party.
Janiahโs dad, Kymone Hinds, says he also is learning from his daughter.
โFrom a young age, Janiah has had a heart for people who are in need and those who are forgotten about. In addition, from the time she was first exposed to black history, she has become a self-student โ doing self-studies in that area โ and has helped to educate me on important figures in black history that I didnโt know about.โ
Janiah says her business is just the start. In the future, she says she hopes to become a civil rights lawyer and help bring justice and equality to people.
As she sees Black Lives Matter protests happening throughout the country, she sees an opportunity to change the world for the better.
โI hope that whatโs going on now can bring a better change for future generations, especially future generations for people who look me.โ
Janiah has even been featured on local TV news stations, including a February interview on WFLA-TV News Channel 8 (screenshot, right)).
And while Slay It Proud was founded with black teenagers in mind, Janiah says itโs not limited to them.
โA lot of white people and people of other races have supported my business and bought my โBlack isโ shirts,โ she says. โTo me, itโs saying that you see something is wrong and you want to fix it and change society for the better.โ
Her dad sees Janiah as a young leader. โIn any movement for change, people are playing different roles,โ says Kymone. โThere are those on the front line making sure it stays in view and those pushing for change at the political level. Her role is helping people to understand black history. Here is a true education, besides the limited scope of slavery and the civil rights movement.โ
Janiahโs website is SlayItProud.com, where you can view all of her merchandise and access her virtual African American museum. She posts her Black Friday videos on Facebook and Instagram. Find them by searching โSlay It Proud.โ