The initial business African Americans engaged in before the Civil War usually involved a tie to their experiences as slaves.  Thusly, personal assistances and trade in crafts were usually the types of business that former slaves who had bought their freedom went into.  Because educational opportunities for African Americans were severely lacking in those days, their business training was nil, and often their jobs were very similar to those held as former slaves.   Research demonstrates how back then it was extremely difficult for African Americans to receive any kind of credit in order to start up a business.   More formal types of business opportunities, such as bookkeeping work, required higher education, which African Americans had no access to due to pervading negative ideologies maintained about them.

Yet in the 1850s this was not always the rule.  About twenty African Americans owned traditional businesses by this time.  Though a seemingly wretched number by standards today, it was quite a figure in those days.  These business owners were also  worth quite a bit of capital—around a hundred grand, with Stephen Smith the most successful of the bunch.  He has many operations and investments in his portfolio, including coal shipment, real estate ventures, lumberyards, and a bank too.

The Gold Rush of 1849 brought even greater accomplishments from the African American community.  It was quite the era for entrepreneurs.  Because of the demand for supplies and materials various kinds and because of the lacking supplies and materials, it was an immense prospect for African Americans to make their claim too.  In aiming at the larger white demographic, African Americans were able to flourish in many areas notoriously difficult to even maintain a subsistent lifestyle.  Their ways of doing business could be prime modules for modern sales training.  However, when the ration between supply and demand balanced out, African American again in history had difficulty procuring a part in business.