Eboné Graham
Eboné Graham. Photo: Renato Rotolo/Urban News

Embrace the Entirety of Yourself

Eboné Graham is an equity advocate, entrepreneur, and blogger.

She assists minority and low to moderate income earners to grow their businesses as the Opportunity Asheville Liaison. She also serves as a board member of Equity Over Everything and as the Asheville Sister Cities Committee Chair for Osogbo, Nigeria. Eboné is also a proud member of the Adé Project Collective and a host on the Asheville View.

Eboné relocated to Asheville and worked from home full time providing tarot, Akashic, and astrology readings. Soon enough she realized she needed to develop a viable platform for her work and decided to rejoin the workforce in order to invest in her future.

Eboné has done it all: worked as a food manager, cleaned homes, delivered the local daily paper, and worked at a call center. “The work was tiring, draining, and I was always underpaid—not to mention that I barely had time to spend with my children or even have a social life,” said Eboné.

While Eboné was able to invest in some educational courses to grow her business, between her busy work schedule and raising children, her dream of creating a viable enterprise moved further to the back burner. In 2019, Eboné took a business development class taught by Aisha Adams. As her coach, Aisha was able to show her the best model to build a business.

Although it was a stretch, Eboné took her advice, and after five years of rebranding, self-development, and business coaching, Eboné has been working hard on her latest offering, Holy Ratchet, a t-shirt company reclaiming Black Womanhood. Holy Ratchet looks to inspire, motivate, and encourage black women to embrace the entirety of themselves: the complexities of sweet and fierce, light and dark, and everything in between, because, as the tagline of the company reads, “They don’t get to define us.”

Although her path to entrepreneurship has been a winding road, Eboné has no regrets. She has learned the importance of focus, dedication, and holding onto a dream—no matter how things look. She has also learned the importance of building step by step. It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of dreams, but even easier to be discouraged by all the work it takes to make it happen.

By no means does Ms. Graham intend only to sell t-shirts, or to never provide readings again. Nor does she feel that either of those options will result in six figures by itself. But thanks to her coach, mentor, and friend, Aisha Adams, she recognizes that without community involvement and service most black businesses will fail. Armed with that truth and her growing love for Asheville, Eboné continues her work of building her own enterprise to leave as a legacy for her children and for her people to know that entrepreneurship is a path out of poverty.