Black Monarch
Click the image to shop Black Monarch’s “Continue the Legacy T-shirt!
Black Monarch is a socially activist clothing company that was started with the aim of uplifting people of color and their supporters. Founder and CEO Elis Omoroghomwan is a 22-year-old Nigerian immigrant who was raised in Boston, Massachusetts. He grew up in the inner city, then obtained a bachelor degree in business administration from UMass Amherst. Along with several other young men of color who grew up in the city, he founded the company to respond to the devastating killing of Trayvon Martin. The group created a line of clothing that inspires people to seek greatness within themselves and find ways to use that greatness to improve the world. One of their t-shirts proclaims Greatness is Contagious, for example, and a second urges us all to Rise Above.
We interviewed Elis (CEO) and Chebukka (CFO) who explained that their company name was inspired after the Monarch bird, which faced extinction but fought to rebound and is now thriving. Similarly, Black Monarch seeks to inspire customers to feel a sense of determination and optimism about their own purpose and ability to take positive action. The company achieved swift success in its early years with an innovative marketing strategy that involved holding popular parties where they also sold clothing. After reaching 20,000 followers on Instagram, the group even caught the attention of Boston’s mayor, who has invited the company’s founders to visit schools to speak to children about the importance of financial literacy and maintaining a positive outlook even in the face of adversity. Currently, however, the company faces current challenges as their events calendar has been curtailed by COVID-19 and their mentoring work is on hold until the school environment returns to normal. Black Monarch’s founders see this as a pivotal moment when they themselves need to battle hard to rise above these uncertainties. To that end, they have just created a new line of clothing that digs deep into Black history to provide new sources of positive energy, and their web site now features shirts that display the faces of men and women who have led Black people forward through difficult times: Maya Angelou, Martin Luther King Jr., Shirley Chisholm, and Malcolm X. The clothing urges wearers to Continue the Legacy.
