Downeast Magazine

Rose Barboza’s brainchild went live back in June. Furloughed from her tourism job due to the coronavirus pandemic and grieving the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, the Saco resident spent three days using her rudimentary coding skills to build a simple website called Black Owned Maine, a directory of bookstores, mechanics, food trucks, dentists’ offices, and other businesses owned by Black Mainers. “There are all these big directories that list Black-owned businesses, and Maine is never on them,” she says. “I was like, I wish Maine was on that list. And then I realized I can actually do that myself.”...