Yelp Updates Its App With a New Tool Dedicated to Searching for Black-Owned Businesses

The revolution has begun—increasing the solidarity between business and consumer, San Francisco’s popular business reviewing app Yelp, has just announced their plans for a new tool that will enable users to specifically search for businesses that are black owned.

The company’s CEO Jeremey Stoppelman, shared the news with the public via a blog post last week.

“Our country has a long and fraught history of systemic oppression and anti-Black racism that we have shamefully not yet come close to overcoming. Police brutality, disproportionate incarceration, income disparity, the opportunity gap, and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and other minority communities, are only a few of the symptoms of this crisis. Recent events, starting with the brutal murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery, have made racial injustice something that we must deal with immediately as a society…There can be no going back to ‘business as usual’ when the protests, tweets and news cycle die down.”

Yelp will also donate $500,000 to the Equal Justice Initiative and NAACP Legal Defense Fund—who both provide outstanding resources and aid for members of the Black community; as well as a pledge to match any and all donations from their employees to Black-led or Black-owned businesses, and services that offer paid mental health days for their employees.

Thank You, Yelp.

Photo: Instagram

By Matt Koger