Pitch competitions, corporate matchmaking, and a hall full of Black founders: inside the chamber’s 2026 Juneteenth Innovation Expo.
Sharon Benjamin almost let the moment pass. She had heard about the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey for years before she walked into her first event, a Women Who Empower luncheon in May. By the time she reached the Innovation Expo, she had stopped waiting.
“Sometimes you may be hesitant about doing some things,” Benjamin said. Her younger sister, an author, had handed her a line she kept repeating: “You have to spend money to make money. So I am investing, and I have already registered for the chamber’s Educators of Color Symposium. I am there.”
Benjamin teaches college freshmen, works as a reading specialist and writes children’s books. She grew up on a farm in Tennessee, one of 13 children raised by parents who never finished school but kept the house full of books. “I remember they would put blinders on the mules,” she said. “So I tell people, wear blinders and earplugs, because all of this out here is just noise. Stay focused on God’s purpose for you.”
Talking yourself into the room was the real competition.
The chamber’s annual Juneteenth Innovation Expo, a daylong gathering that fills a hall with Black founders, corporate partners and investors. A live pitch competition put entrepreneurs in front of judges and prize money. Matchmaking tables paired business owners with the procurement officers and capital they rarely get one on one time with. Panels worked through AI and what the next decade of innovation asks of Black business. Vendors and exhibitors lined the floor.
“What you witness in this exhibit hall — all the displays, all the people here — that’s our excellence. Our innovative ability, our resilience, our perseverance, our ability to articulate and create in a way that makes this country the envy of the world. That’s who Black people are in these United States.”
— Dr. John E. Harmon Sr., IOM – Founder, President & CEO AACCNJ
Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865 — the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally learned they were free, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The chamber anchors its Innovation Expo to that day on purpose. Freedom on paper meant little without the means to build on it, and economic ownership is the part of the work that is still unfinished. Black founders pitching, connecting, and collaborating is what the next chapter of that freedom looks like.
Seven Seales, the founder of Five Fifth Esports and Innovation Hub, took the three-fifths clause that counted enslaved Black people as fractions of a person — and made it whole. “Black people were considered three-fifths of a person back in the day,” she said. “I chose the name Five Fifth to show that we are here, fully accounted for.”
Seales had spent days talking herself out of coming. She showed up anyway and won the pitch competition. “I was kind of talking myself out of coming a few days ago,” she said. “Now that I’m here, I made the right decision.” Her read on the room cut against how most people move. “Everybody is attached to their phones. They’re letting their lives pass by, like they’re a passenger in their own lives. A lot of people are missing that community aspect — the human touches, the connections.”
Rose Golden took runner-up, and she’d entered at the buzzer. “I got into this very last minute, so I’m proud of myself for pulling it off,” she said. Golden runs Gospel Karaoke — “a live interactive experience where anyone can come in, grab a mic and leave better than they came.” The idea came from her own ear. “I started doing karaoke events back in 2023, and I just felt in my spirit — I’d never heard gospel karaoke. I love gospel music. Why don’t I give it a shot? Did the very first one, and they were like, ‘When are you doing it again?’ I did a Disney one, it flopped, and they said, ‘No, no — when is that gospel one happening again?’ By the third one, we had outgrown the venue.” The demand made the call for her. “Sometimes what we want is not what people want,” she said. “When we have a proof of concept that works, sometimes we have to run with it.”
The founders who’d been in the game longer kept circling one idea: reach back. Ronnette Smith-Powell — “Nettie” — is a 25-year educator who built Nettie, Nana and Friends, a puppet and children’s book company she runs with her daughter Destiny. The whole operation turns on it. “When you partner with someone who’s ahead of you, it takes you to the next level,” she said. “But as you grow, our other goal is to take those who are behind us. The success that God allows you to have, you give to someone else.”
Raheem Veal, founder and CEO of Razor Sharp Global, runs workforce-development cohorts for the chamber’s Training & Development Institute, including training for people coming out of reentry and recovery. He measures the work in dignity. “The goal is to help folks get back into the workforce, and to help them have the dignity of not just work, but a career.” The expo gave him range. “Cross-generational mentorship and collaboration. Folks who are hungry and emerging can learn from, collaborate with, and offer insight to people who have been in the game for decades.”
Kelly Murphy quit corporate journalism for that exact reason. Now a content strategist at Passage Theatre, a Black-owned company in Trenton, she sees the chamber’s annual gathering as the cure for a feeling founders rarely admit. “It’s so easy to feel like you’re on an island,” she said. “When we come together, it’s a reminder that we’re not on an island, and that we can get from point A to point B if we reach out.” She refuses to wait. “We can’t wait for other people to do this for us. We have to do this for ourselves.”
For Hadiya, executive director of We Discover Africa, the room rewrote a story she’s been correcting since she moved from Ghana at 17. “One of the stereotypes is that Africa is poor, always in need, begging for help,” she said. “We are innovators. We are people that invent.” A hall full of Black founders pitching and closing made her case for her. “It aligns exactly with what we do — getting the word out about who we are as African people.”
Legacy worked the floor too. Muhammad Bell — son of Robert “Kool” Bell of Kool & the Gang — moved between tables for Kool King Coconut Water and Le Kool Champagne in the VIP section while representing the family’s Kool Kids Foundation, which funds the arts programs schools cut first. “So we give back to that program. We create the program if need be, instruments, uniforms, transportation back and forth to competition,” he said. “This was my mother’s dream. It’s about opportunity, giving back.” Then he put the math plainly: “Each one teach one.”
Keynote speaker Elvin Ross walked in still learning what the room could do for him. A Emmy Award winning composer who runs E. Ross Studios, Ross recently pivoted into real estate development, and the chamber was new terrain. “I’m just now getting familiar with what the chamber does,” he said. “You have to have someone in place fighting for change. This is a great foundation — an incubator for other businesses coming in.”
John E. Harmon Sr., the chamber’s founder, president and CEO, set the terms from the stage. He pointed at the disbanding of diversity, equity and inclusion programs and told the room not to confuse a policy with a people. “That’s just an initiative. That’s not who we are,” Harmon said. “New Jersey is better because we’re here. Fill in the narrative about who you are — not what people say you are.”
Late in the day, Benjamin was still taking it all in. “I’m just so excited to see people like us doing so many wonderful things,” she said. “It dispels anything the media says.” She came in hesitant and left already planning her next move. The founders who showed up walked away with the one thing the room never promised in advance — each other.
The Move: Keep the Room Open
A room like this only counts if it keeps working after everyone goes home. Support the founders who showed up — and if you build, get in the room yourself.
- Sharon Benjamin, Certified Reading Specialist, Author, Entrepreneur
- Seven Seales — Five Fifth Esports and Innovation Hub
- Rose Golden — Gospel Karaoke
- Ronnette “Nettie” Smith-Powell — Nettie, Nana and Friends
- Raheem Veal — Razor Sharp Global
- Kelly Murphy — Passage Theatre
- Hadiya — We Discover Africa
- Muhammad Bell — Kool King Coconut Water · Le Kool Champagne · Kool Kids Foundation
- Elvin Ross — E. Ross Studios
Get in the room: Join the African American Chamber of Commerce of New Jersey
