They Sued Her for Funding Black Women. Now Arian Simone Is Telling the Whole Story in DC

Arian Simone did not just build a venture capital fund. She defended it in one of the most closely watched legal battles over economic opportunity in recent memory, and she won the right to keep going. Now she is telling the whole story, and the Fearless Freedom Book Tour is coming to Washington, DC on September 17.

The book is Fearless Freedom: A Manifesto for Unlocking Wealth and Equality for All, and it is part memoir, part leadership guide. Simone takes readers behind the headlines and into the strategy sessions where she and her team fought to preserve the fund, its mission, and tools like it, then turns those lessons into practical playbooks for entrepreneurs, investors, corporations, and policymakers.

The backstory is a modern civil rights fight. Simone co-founded the Fearless Fund, the first venture capital fund built by women of color for women of color, to attack a stubborn inequity, the lack of access to capital. In 2023, a conservative legal organization fresh off its Supreme Court victory against affirmative action sued the fund over a grant program for Black women, arguing it violated an 1866 civil rights law originally written to empower formerly enslaved people. Simone became the face of a national battle over who gets funded in America, and she refused to back down.

She brings serious credentials to the story. A Florida A&M University MBA and an HBCU product, Simone built a PR and marketing firm serving clients like Sony Pictures, Disney, and Universal before turning to venture capital, drew institutional backers like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Mastercard to the Fearless Fund, earned a seat on the board of Steve Madden, and was named one of Entrepreneur Magazine's 100 Women of Impact. Her book distills all of it into a blueprint for resilience.

The DC stop is billed as a real conversation, not just a signing. The tour promises powerful discussion about the book, economic equality, and what it takes to create greater access and opportunity for all, with special guest moderators in select cities. Space is limited and the event runs by RSVP, with venue details shared once you register.

For a DMV crowd full of founders, funders, and builders, this is a chance to hear directly from someone who put her life's work on the line to protect access to capital, and lived to write the playbook. It also lands in a stacked September for the region, one more reason to lock it in early.

The Fearless Freedom Book Tour stops in Washington, DC on September 17. RSVP and find details at ariansimone.com/booktour.