Freedomways and the Black arts economy takes shape in Harlem

From the barbershops and beauty salons to the insurance companies and newspapers, the Black business infrastructure of Harlem in the early 20th century constituted a self-sustaining urban economy that predated and paralleled the cultural Harlem Renaissance. By 1920 Harlem had become the commercial capital of Black America, with hundreds of Black-owned enterprises demonstrating the possibilities of urban Black capitalism.