International businesswoman Jessica Huie was experiencing some of the same distressing racial dilemmas in her hometown of London that blacks have known during their existence in America: her beautiful, photogenic daughter hated her own hair and aspired to alter her appearance to look more white and be a “princess.”
Huie’s heart hurt to hear that. But when Huie visited major shopping districts to find a greeting card with a black princess to convince her daughter of her beauty, her efforts proved futile. She could not find a single greeting card with a person of color on it.
“I was enjoying a very successful career in media at the time. and I remember I went looking for a greeting card that on my lunch break, would have a black princess, a princess with a brown skin, whether it was animated or a photograph of a black child,” Huie recalls.
“And I went looking on Oxford Street, one of the busiest streets. And I what I found were greeting cards that had no one of color of any kind — black, Asian, mixed or any. And this is 2007. I was like ‘wow.’ London is one of the most multicultural cities in the world.”
Therefore, Huie came up with the concept of creating Colorblind Cards (colorblindcards.com). Huie, a former international journalist who interviewed the likes of Mariah Carey and Cuba Gooding Jr., and a PR exec who worked with the likes of Simon Cowell of “American Idol” and “X Factor,” applied the same impulsive, go-get-it nature she did to her other illustrious career moves to get Colorblind Cards off the ground and into the mainstream, upscale shopping districts.
“I wanted to create a brand that wouldn’t marginalize anyone and would be inclusive of everyone,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that future generations would be able to purchase cards that would be reflective of them. Color blind is really about being blind to color and that we are all human beings first and foremost.” 
Huie’s concept engendered “massive support” from the the black community of London, but she didn’t want her products in only the mom and pop stores on the backstreets.
“I felt that we should have a presence on the main street mainstream, like High Street,” she said.
First, Huie had to prove that there was a market for Colorblind Cards and disprove buyers and distributors who would say there was no demand for these kinds of cards. And, most of all, she wanted cards that would speak to her people on a deep, personal level.
“On a commercial level, there’s a real opportunity here. On a social level, I just thought it was imperative for children to have access to these because this is how we impart a strong sense of identity in our children. And being the impulsive human being that I am, I’m just going to put greeting cards on the shelves of stores on High Street,” she said.
The sales of Colorblind was immediate, meteoric and shocking, particularly with Colorblind’s original critics and naysayers. Today, Colorblind Cards can be found in over 100 branches of the United Kingdom’s leading Clinton Cards and led to Huie winning multiple business awards.
The success has spilled into the international market as Colorbind Cards can be found in Nigeria and South Africa. Colorblind Cards has been such the phenomenon that Huie was invited to No. 10 Downing Street to discuss business and enterprise with Prime Minister Gordon Brown — a euphoric experience that Huie called “surreal” and “wonderful.”
Now that she has conquered Great Britain with Colorblind Cards, America is Huie’s next target. “I want Colorblind to be the market leader in multicultural cards, inclusive and with beautiful images and poignant words and represent them,” she said. “Every child should be able to pick up cards and see representation of themselves, that they are fine just the way they are and they don’t have to aspire to look like someone else.” To view the beautiful greeting cards, visit www.colorblindcards.com.
To listen to the interview in its entirety, click below:
