Birmingham’s entrepreneurial community is constantly expanding, especially when it comes to Black business owners. Danielle Hines, who moved to Birmingham, AL from Washington, D.C., is giving Black entrepreneurs an upper hand by opening the first Black-owned coworking space in the city, Creed63.
Located in the historic district of downtown Birmingham, Creed63 seeks to build on the work done by civil rights leaders to help Black businesses achieve their dreams and achieve generational wealth. As a Birmingham-based blogger particularly, I wanted to highlight Hines’ work in the community, especially since discussions about Black generational wealth, Black prosperity, and economic reparations are in the zeitgeist for the foreseeable future.
The topic of the Black dollar is significant for Hines, who said she was able to secure the building from her former boss, Judge Helen Shores Lee, whose father was Arthur Shores, the attorney for Martin Luther King, Jr. With Creed63 located right in the heart of where Birmingham’s civil rights movement took place, Hines said she is still processing what it means to be in an area that means so much to the city, state, and the nation in terms of activism, democracy and freedom.
“The historical significance of where we are as it relates to Birmingham…where this building sits, what happened here…this is a sacred space,” she said. “…It’s a tremendous honor. It’s bigger than me, what’s happening here. These 85 businesses that I just mentioned–and we are growing–it’s bigger than me. And so to be in this space, to have been given the opportunity by someone who was a child of a civil rights leader, Martin Luther King’s attorney, that’s an honor.”
Hines said she made Lee three promises when she agreed to take over the building.
“I told her I would always keep the building named after her father,” she said. “For Black and minority lawyers, they would always have an affordable place to practice law, and I would activate the building so that it was a contributing structure to what is happening in the district, so that it would bring vitality to the district, which is part of the reason why I said this had to be some type of space for entrepreneurs.”
Learn more about Creed63 in the interview below.
Creed63 is located at 1601 5th Ave North in Birmingham, AL. Find Creed63 on Facebook and Instagram, and email Creed63 at info@creed63.com or cm@creed63.com to reach the organization’s community manager. You can also call 205-887-1003. If you’re in the area and would like to reserve a room, visit the members page.
