Financial freedom is often discussed in dollars and cents. At the Decatur Book Festival, Arian Simone, Stacey Abrams and Danita Knight framed it as something larger: the freedom to create opportunity, challenge inequity and make sure others can enter the rooms that once excluded them.

The “Financial Freedom for All” panel brought the three women together Oct. 3 at the Decatur Marriott as part of the 21st annual Decatur Book Festival, held Oct. 2-3 in downtown Decatur. The session centered on Simone’s new book, “Fearless Freedom: A Manifesto for Unlocking Wealth and Equality for All,” which officially launched Oct. 6. Abrams wrote the book’s afterword. Knight, president and CEO of YWCA Greater Atlanta, moderated the discussion.

The conversation explored how family, faith, economic opportunity and civil rights shaped Simone’s work as co-founder and CEO of Fearless Fund, a venture capital firm created to invest in businesses led by women of color. Knight introduced the book through its three pillars of fearlessness: honoring your roots, developing faith over fear and building your vision from the top down. 

For Simone, those roots stretch back to Detroit, where she said she grew up surrounded by the legacy of the civil rights movement. Her father, an attorney, represented civil rights leaders, while her mother successfully pursued the largest discrimination case in the state of Michigan at the time involving race, sex and age. Simone said those experiences shaped her understanding of equality long before she became an entrepreneur and investor.

That history took on new meaning in 2023, when Fearless Fund faced a federal lawsuit challenging its Fearless Strivers Grant Contest, a program that provided grants to businesses owned by Black women.

“On Aug. 2, 2023, I was in my home office in Atlanta, Georgia, and the staff started alerting me that we had a lawsuit,” Simone recalled. “We were being sued, and it was all over the news.”

The lawsuit argued that the grant contest violated Section 1981 of the Civil Rights Act of 1866. Passed after the Civil War, the law guarantees the right to make and enforce contracts without racial discrimination. The challenge argued that restricting eligibility for the grant contest to Black women discriminated against applicants of other races.

For Simone, the argument was difficult to reconcile with the history of the law and Fearless Fund’s goal of addressing disparities in access to capital.

“I said, ‘Well, I’m the formerly enslaved, and I am getting the formerly enslaved into contracts,’” Simone said, recalling her reaction to reading the lawsuit.

Abrams, who wrote the afterword to “Fearless Freedom,” used the conversation to place Simone’s experience within a broader discussion about civil rights protections and access to opportunity. Abrams said she learned about the Fearless Fund case shortly after the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision restricting the consideration of race in college admissions and became concerned about what similar legal challenges could mean for programs intended to address racial disparities.

Abrams also described supporting Simone as the lawsuit unfolded. Earlier in the conversation, Simone said their relationship grew into a “sisterhood,” with Abrams helping her think through how to respond.

“Stacey will thought-partner with you,” Simone said. “She’ll get in the room with you. She’s like, ‘OK, how do we navigate through this? How do we move through that? What are the solutions here?’”

Abrams, in turn, praised Simone for continuing to lead Fearless Fund while facing the pressure of a high-profile legal battle.

“I saw this young woman refuse to bow and refuse to stop doing what she was doing,” Abrams said. “When she stood, she created space for many more to stand, and that’s something that I will always hold.”

The legal battle ultimately ended in a 2024 settlement that brought the challenged grant contest to an end. During the Decatur Book Festival discussion, however, Simone said Fearless Fund’s broader mission of investing in businesses led by women of color remained intact.

“We are still built by women of color for women of color, and women of color co-founded businesses,” Simone said. “We didn’t have to change our mission.”

The experience also became part of “Fearless Freedom,” which combines Simone’s personal story with strategies for addressing economic disparities. Simone told the audience that the lawsuit reinforced her belief that conversations about economic opportunity cannot ignore race and gender.

“When gender or race is left out of the conversation, then gender and race get left behind,” Simone said. “Typically, it’s actually the Black female that gets left behind.”

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