For 1.8 miles along Blue Hill Avenue in Grove Hall, banners honor Black women who helped shape Boston from the 1700s to the present. They include abolitionists, educators, judges, doctors, artists, elected officials, athletes, nurses, entrepreneurs, activists, institution-builders, and pioneers in fields that were never designed to welcome them. Many were famous. Many should have been. The Black Women Lead project seeks to weave them into public memory through the ongoing installation of these banners.
Boston companies are constantly asked to sponsor good causes. Most sponsorship pitches lead with familiar numbers: impressions, logo placement, media exposure, event attendance, and community visibility. Those metrics matter. Any serious company should care about reach.
But the strongest reason for a Boston company to sponsor projects like Black Women Lead is not visibility. It is association.
The first cohort for Black Women Lead included more than 200 women. The expanded list will move toward 500. That makes this more than a neighborhood beautification project. It is a public archive. It is a gallery without walls. It is a civic classroom. It is a moving monument to Black excellence in one of Boston’s historic Black neighborhoods.
For corporate Boston, that matters.
Many of Boston’s major companies already have a connection to the women on this list. Some of these women worked in major corporations. Some broke barriers in law, health care, finance, education, government, media, sports, philanthropy, the arts, and civic life. Some served on boards, led institutions, built organizations, trained future leaders, or opened doors that others now walk through. Sponsorship gives companies a way to honor women who are already part of their own institutional story.
That is not charity. That is alignment.
In modern marketing language, this is also a giant influencer campaign. But unlike the usual influencer campaign, the influence is not based on trends, celebrity, or social media performance. It is based on trust, admiration, sacrifice, achievement, and memory. Why would a Boston company not want its brand associated with some of the city’s most admired, beloved, and iconic Black women?
This is especially important because Boston still carries a reputation it has never fully shaken. Around the country, the city is known for universities, hospitals, championship teams, venture capital, and innovation. It is also known, fairly or unfairly, as a city with a difficult racial history and a continuing problem with racial belonging.
Corporate sponsorship will not erase that history. No banner, festival, grant, or public art project can do that. But companies can help Boston tell a fuller story about itself. Cities are judged not only by what they build downtown, but by whom they remember, whose neighborhoods they invest in, whose children they inspire, and whose excellence they make visible.
This is American history. It is women’s history. It is this city's history. It is civic education, cultural preservation, community development, and brand leadership.
The invitation is simple: put your company’s name beside excellence. Not as guilt. Not as box-checking. Not as a slogan. As pride. As a strategy. As repair. As a public declaration that Boston’s future should be built on a more honest understanding of Boston’s past.
Ed Gaskin is Executive Director of Greater Grove Hall Main Streets. Jenny LaFleur, Ph.D., is Embrace’s Director of Research and Policy.
