The jewelry designer Lola Oladunjoye remembers that she was sketching in the studio of her Paris apartment one day in late May 2020. She looked up at the television and, on CNN, watched in horror a video of George Floyd being fatally restrained by a police officer in Minneapolis. It had been only a little more than two months since a police detective in Louisville, Ky., had shot and killed Breonna Taylor.

Shocked by these events, millions came out to march for racial equity in what may have been the largest protest movement in American history. It was a period that, for Black jewelry designers, became a bittersweet opportunity: A host of initiatives, curations and programs from brands like the Natural Diamond Council, Sotheby’s and De Beers were created to spotlight the work of Black designers in the aftermath.

And now, even as Black designers acknowledge a shift in the political environment, many say that the period allowed them to advance in ways they never expected.

Lorraine West, the founder of Lorraine West Jewelry in New York City, recalled that it took her 12 years to move into fine jewelry. Then almost overnight in 2020, she received an influx of orders and inquiries from retailers, fashion editors and corporate executives.

“Since then,” she wrote in an email, “I’ve learned to assess if an opportunity is in alignment with my business goals, building on a stable foundation of support, consistency, reciprocity and rest.”