More African-owned businesses, shops, eateries are opening in the St. Louis area
By Hannah Wyman, St.Louis Post Dispatch
Linda Ogbah Faas remembers the tiny replica of the Gateway Arch her folks kept in their Nigerian home when she was a child. It was both a reminder of their time at Bible college in Missouri — and a message to their daughter of the better future she could have in America.
“I had all these dreams, having never been to St. Louis,” Faas said.
Now, about two decades later, Faas is leading the effort to shine a spotlight on local African-owned businesses here, as president of the African Chamber of Commerce St. Louis.
For years, African-owned businesses in the region have operated in somewhat of a bubble inside their own community, she said. But, as St. Louis' African population grows, entrepreneurs are working to expand their customer bases and raise their profiles.
“We’re finding our ways … to showcase what we have to offer,” Faas said. The African Chamber holds promotional events and works with the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce, the Asian American Chamber of Commerce of St. Louis and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan St. Louis to make connections.
Faas estimates there are more than two dozen African-owned businesses in the region, a mix of specialty retailers, restaurateurs, business consultants, home health professionals and more. For many years she ran a store that sold African souvenirs, clothes, food and more in Fairview Heights, Illinois.
“We want to work with the St. Louis business community,” Faas said. “We want to be accepted. We want to be viewed as equal business partners.”
The number of African-born residents has grown since the 1980s and picked up in recent years, according to American Community Survey data through the U.S. Census Bureau.
In 1990, about 7,000 Africans lived in the St. Louis area. That number grew to a little over 8,000 in 2003. By 2023 there were about 23,000 African immigrants in the region, according to the data.
That change has become evident over the past two decades, said Zellipah Githui, owner of Gitzell Fair Trade International, a wholesaler of African-made goods in St. Charles. She moved from Kenya to Kansas for college in 1998 and started her business selling earrings and souvenirs from her dorm room.
In 2003, she moved to St. Louis where the African community, specifically the Kenyan community, she said, was “very, very small.” Everywhere she went people wanted to know about Africa and asked her about her life and culture.
“You go to a dentist's place, you're the only one. You go to a kid's school, you're the only one,” Githui said. “Fast forward to now, the population has really, really grown.”
It used to be rare to find a grocery store that carried African foods, like goat meat, taro, plantains and white corn meal — but no longer, she said.
“Every two miles you have a place you can buy food, even in St. Charles."
“Africans, naturally, are entrepreneurs,” she said. “Now that the population has grown, you have a target audience that will be interested in buying the products that you carry.”
'That entrepreneurial spirit'
