ReShonda Young is an entrepreneur from Waterloo, Iowa. She started and franchised a popcorn business, Popcorn Heaven, before selling the company in 2019. She’s also a landlord, the director of an accelerator that supports Black business owners in Waterloo and the leading force behind an effort to open what would be Iowa’s only Black-owned bank.
It’s a challenging mission. No one has opened a new bank with majority Black ownership in more than 20 years.
Young’s parents and grandparents were born in Mississippi, and all sharecropped. As the first generation removed from that, she has a keen eye for the impact of American history — and government actions — on the country’s enduring racial wealth gap.
ReShonda Young in her neighborhood in Waterloo, Iowa. (Brenna Norman for the Center for Public Integrity) 
ReShonda Young (right) talks with business owner Rosie Daniel of LuLit’s Hair Essence, a graduate of the business accelerator Young directs. (Brenna Norman for the Center for Public Integrity) 
ReShonda Young in her home office. (Brenna Norman for the Center for Public Integrity) 
ReShonda Young in her neighborhood on a bright autumn day. (Brenna Norman for the Center for Public Integrity) 
ReShonda Young (left) sits with her mother, Robel Wright, at Wright’s home in Waterloo, Iowa. (Brenna Norman for the Center for Public Integrity)
Episode 1: A deeper look