‘Be Brave’ hatched during COVID pandemic
By Kenneth Miller, Publisher
When most businesses were shuttered their doors in 2020 during the height of COVID pandemic, Keisha Meighan and her sister decided to open a new one.
“My sister and I both work for the county (of Los Angeles) and we both were like, what can we do. We’re over it! What can we do that we both know it and can give back to the community? We went back and forth through all these different industries. We both have retail experience and customer service, then I thought we could not get help when we go to the beauty supply store,” said Meighan.
So, collectively they decided they wanted to become the solution to that bad customer service at the beauty supply store.
“We wanted Black people to come in here and say this is what my hair is doing and the person behind the register can be able to relate,” she continued.
So, that’s what started their journey of opening ‘Be Brave Beauty Supply’ located at 13052 Hawthorne Blvd. in Hawthorne.
She and her sister Shanda Carter became co-owners, and hence two Belizean sisters who were born in Harlem, New York and raised in California have made their impression in an industry that has been dominated by Asians.
“For the most part our beauty supply stores are Asian ran, they own it, that’s their industry,” explained Meighan. “They control the supply, the demand, from everything behind the scene, even the vendors for us now. We still have to go through them to get out product.”
So, they were just tired of trying to get the help they needed when Blacks are the number one support.
When the sisters sat down, they were determined to provide customer service that people could relate to, having someone understand their hair.
Meighan is 36 years old and her sister, Carter is 43, together the siblings represent a new generation of entrepreneurs America.
They were not born into wealth, but instead taught the value of hard work and sacrifice from their mother who labored long days and nights so that her daughters would not have to.
A mother who worked a full time day job, a full time night job and a weekend job to make sure that her children went to college.
As a result, Meighan and Clark both have obtained their masters degrees, from National University and California State University Dominguez Hills, respectively.
Culturally, they have experienced life in America from the prism of a Black person, but with strong Belizean heritage.
“We are much like Belizean Americans because we have both sides. Our friends in school and growing up, everybody that we associated with in school growing up were Americans. But we have are Belizean inside and we just combined the two to make sure that every time we associated with somebody or speak with somebody that we are pretty much meeting them where they are. Belizeans are diverse, we come from a diverse culture. Some people go to Belize and they see Chinese people that are Belizeans, Spanish Belizeans, we have African Belizeans, so that what our family is,” explained Clark and Meighan.
“We wanted our customers to be inspired to be bold and brave and be who they wanted to be, so it was important that they saw someone who looked like them.”
For more information contact Be Brave Beauty Supply; P: 323-493-2956 P: 323-445-1913 E: [email protected]; www.bebravebeautysupply.com
