New Location, More Businesses

The third annual Atlanta Black Expo brought over 200 Black-owned businesses together to network and get their products and services to the masses. The Atlanta Black Expo is the largest showcase of Black-owned businesses in the Southeast.

The two-day event ran from February 22-23, 2025, at the Georgia World Congress Center, which is a new and bigger location from the past two years. This year’s expo featured a VIP reception on Saturday that included samples of food and beverages from Black-owned businesses.

During the VIP reception, Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens was presented with a trailblazer award from Corey “NetworKing” Moore, who relaunched the Atlanta Black Expo concept in 2023.

Mayor Dickens said during his speech that he was a business owner for nine and half years where he had 30 employees. Mayor Dickens said he understands the importance of events like the Atlanta Black Expo and was happy to be honored.

“Atlanta is a group project…we must depend and rely on each other…[and] we rely on small businesses,” said Mayor Dickens. “…Atlanta, we are intentional about our local economy…thank you for being brave enough to start a business.”

Day two was the marketplace that featured vendors, food tastings, workshops, a fashion show, speed networking sessions, and over 20 speakers.

Meet the Black-Owned Businesses

With over 200 Black-owned businesses present, there was something for everyone, from jewelry to real estate, clothing, and everything in between.

Some of those businesses included Toni’s Timber Handcrafted, Sheniquely You, Cecilia Spice Company, The Art of Giving, Double Infinity Publishing, Jonny Baby BBQ, Bailey’s Bartending, and 15X Business Solutions.

Toni Brandon of Toni’s Timber Handcrafted has been in business for seven months. Brandon says she’s always been creative and decided to teach herself how to work with wood.

Toni’s Timber Handcrafted offers a variety of wood pieces including charcuterie boards, coasters, serving trays, chest boards, and furniture to name a few.

Brandon said she could make almost anything and it just took a push from her spouse for her to start selling her items.

Although she’s currently working a full-time job, Brandon finds peace in her woodwork.

”Live your dream. YOLO. We only get one life. I want to do this life so well that when it’s all said and done, I get to be like yes, so I definitely encourage that. You’re never too old…just do your thing,” said Brandon.

The Atlanta Black Chambers was also present at the expo.

The Chair Committee of the Women’s League of the Atlanta Black Chambers Michelle Glover spoke to the Carvd N Stone Team about the resources that the Chambers provide for Black-owned businesses. Some of those resources include workshops and monthly meetings.

Glover said the most common challenge they help businesses with is being capital-ready. She said businesses need to have their financial statements in order and a business plan with a path on how that business is going to scale before going to a bank or funder for capital.

”We want to eliminate as many risks for our Black businesses as possible,” said Glover.

The Atlanta Black Chambers also provides contracting programming to ensure Black-owned businesses have what they need to attract government and corporate contracts.

”Contracting is a way for our Black businesses to become millionaires, and so we want to have our businesses being government contracting ready, corporate contracting ready, so it’s not about getting small dollar amounts…but we want to create multi-millionaires,” said Glover.

Check out our video interviews from the 2025 Atlanta Black Expo here.