Then and Now: Toledo’s Black-Owned Business Leaders
Posted on February 3, 2025
by Lindsay Williams, Small Business and Nonprofit Librarian
From bakers to home builders, financial advisors to fitness pros, and healthcare providers to photographers, Toledo’s Black-owned business community stands ready to fill your every need.
Over 100 local businesses are listed as Black- or African American-owned within the Toledo Chamber of Commerce directory, with many more working on obtaining an MBE (Minority-Owned Business Enterprise) certification every day.
Toledo’s MBAC, or Minority-Owned Business Assistance Center, has been a cornerstone in providing business assistance to Black entrepreneurs, logging over a thousand no-cost service hours each calendar year.
Alongside MBAC, the Toledo Library’s Small Business & Nonprofit Department provides resources to those history-making business owners of tomorrow. This month, we celebrate Black History and the stories of Black business firsts in our area.
Housed digitally as part of the Library’s Local History collections, the Toledo History Scrapbook series has several archives dedicated to celebrating Black Americans. The Library collection also includes the enlightening book Black Toledo: A Documentary History of the African American Experience in Toledo, Ohio.
Stories of Black entrepreneurial success researched within these resources appear below, often with notes on how these pioneers paved the way for the Black-owned businesses we enjoy supporting in this current day.

Ella Stewart
In February of 1936, pharmacist Ella Stewart was featured in a Toledo Blade article celebrating the achievements of Black Toledoans in ‘Business and Industrial Life’. She and her husband William owned and operated Stewart Pharmacy, cited in the article as one of two Black-owned pharmacies in the area (the second opened by Silas Harris).
Stewart Pharmacy opened in 1922 and now, some 100+ years later, just last month a Central Catholic graduate Anthony Pattin returned to his home of Toledo, Ohio to open the independent Junction Family Pharmacy. In a way, the Stewarts inspired Pattin; he noted that when he was a teenager an elderly neighbor had told him the story of Ella Stewart.

Elvin Wanzo
Also mentioned in the 1936 article was Elvin Wanzo, who opened Toledo’s first Black-owned mortuary in the year 1912. In 1946, Wanzo’s funeral home was purchased by a couple whose last name you are likely to recognize today; Clarence and Genevieve Dale. Genevieve would go on to further make history, serving as the first African-American woman to serve as president of the Northwest Ohio Funeral Directors Association.
Today, Elvin Wanzo’s legacy lives on as new leadership continues to own and operate Toledo’s first Black funeral home. Now under the name of Dale-Riggs Funeral Home, this area institution has continuously operated for over 110 years to honor the memories of thousands.
Wanzo is also credited as one of the ten founders of the Frederick Douglass Community Center (known locally as ‘The Doug’), which offers senior basketball leagues, martial arts, worship opportunities, cheerleading, afterschool programming, yoga, and much more to residents of the Junction neighborhood.
Dr. Hope Mitchell, MD
In the medical field, patients feel more at ease with a practitioner who can relate to them. Luckily, for patients of color seeking dermatology services in Lucas and Sandusky counties, there’s Dr. Hope Mitchell, MD.
Nationwide, only three percent of dermatologists are Black, making it the second least-diverse medical specialty after orthopaedics. The only Black dermatologist in Northwest Ohio, Dr. Mitchell serves patients through her privately-owned practices located in Perrysburg and Fremont.
As a tireless advocate for mentorship, education, and diversity in medicine and dermatology, Dr. Mitchell is a member of the Skin of Color Society and the Director of Research and Vice Chair for The National Medical Association, Dermatology Section.
This year, Black-owned Mitchell Dermatology celebrates 20 years in practice.
Charles Welch
WERD was the first Black-owned radio station in the United States, broadcasting in 1949 from Atlanta, Georgia. Critical players in our nation’s history, Black-owned radio stations helped to increase Black voter registration and support the Civil Rights Movement, and were even recognized by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for doing so.
Twenty years later, in 1969, Charles Welch started his first paid radio gig in Toledo, Ohio at WKLR. Moving into the 1970s, Black-owned radio boomed growing from just over a dozen stations to nearly 90 in that decade alone. This provided Charles with the opportunity to gain valuable experience in stations across the country — from Detroit to Houston.
Charles then set his sights even higher, with hopes of owning his own radio station, eventually petitioning the FCC for an available frequency in Swanton, Ohio. After a decade of paperwork, denials, and appeals, Charles would finally earn the license and WJUC-FM “The Juice” would take to the airwaves in 1997. Today, The Juice is fondly referred to as “The People’s Station.”
Charles not only was the first African American in Ohio to build a radio station from scratch, but he did it in a competitive market. Toledo is one of the nation’s Top 100 radio markets, and nearly 30 years later WJUC-FM is still on the air.
Today, The Juice continues to broadcast largely thanks to Charles’ children carrying on his legacy – daughter Debra Hogan operates as President and son Charles “Charlie Mack” Welch as program manager and on-air talent.
Not only will you find the younger Charles voicing Saturday broadcasts on The Juice, but also on BCAN as the host of Untold: Hidden Stories of Northwest Ohio. Bringing this blog article full circle, see the episode where Charles celebrates the life of Ella P. Stewart here.
Toledo is richer as we keep these stories alive and shine a spotlight on impactful Toledo people, places, and events. Explore more of our area’s Black history via your Library’s collections:

Access Online with your Library Card:
Toledo Library Local History: Digital Collections
Newsbank: Black Life in America
Borrow the Book:
Black Toledo: A Documentary History of the African-American Experience in Toledo Ohio
Attend Black History Month Programming:
For Small Business Assistance:
Visit toledolibrary.org/sbn to connect with our Small Business & Nonprofit librarians.
Attend Black History Month Programming:
For Small Business Assistance:
Visit toledolibrary.org/sbn to connect with our Small Business & Nonprofit librarians.
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