ConnCAT Director of HR & Operations Opal Harmon, ConnCORP Community Liaison Daniel Hunt, and ConnCAT Grants and Compliance Manager Stephanie Barnes at their booth. "It's exciting!" Barnes said of BWS Fest. Saturday, she'd brought her 17-year-old son, Ellis, who wants to be an entrepreneur. It's a full-circle moment, she said: Ellis is named for her father, who owned and operated a cleaning service in New Haven for years. Bottom: Spa At Home, which is run by the mother-daughter team Linda Lampart and her daughter, Kristina Lawrence. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Fire Chief John Alston looked over a growing crowd, the words Greenwood Rising clear on the neat lettering of his t-shirt. Already, he had lifted his uniform cap and peeled off his white New Haven Fire polo, there for a moment just as himself. He took a deep breath into the mic, whole decades of history balanced between his palms. In front of him, there were hundreds of people already filling the New Haven Green, buzzing from one Black business to the next.
“This is not just about business. It’s about business investing in community,” Alston said. “Visit Greenwood Rising. Teach your children. Teach them well.”
That sense of a historical, vibrant and at times momentous flourishing—by, for, and with the community—came to downtown New Haven Saturday, as the fourth annual Black Wall Street Festival (BWS Fest) returned to the New Haven Green with over 250 vendors and over 10,000 attendees. A sun-soaked initiative of The Breed Entertainment and the New Haven Department of Cultural Affairs, the festival drew hundreds of artists, entrepreneurs, families and friends to the Green, as much a citywide reunion as it was a celebration of Black commerce and fellowship.
Alston (pictured here still in NHFD uniform): Remember the history.
It came at the end of a week of celebration, including the opening of Skiro Studios in Hamden, an economic summit from Communities for Generations, Inc. (CFG) at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) and an entrepreneur mixer at the Canal Dock Boathouse.
The term “Black Wall Street” references the history, often overlooked and undertaught, of self-sustaining Black business districts in the twentieth century, many of which became the targets of devastating anti-Black violence. The most well-known example may be the Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which in June 1921 was burned to the ground by a white mob. Not only were homes and businesses destroyed—undoing decades of economic progress that followed Reconstruction—but hundreds of Black people lost their lives.
In June of this year—104 years after the Tulsa Race Massacre—Tulsa Mayor Monroe Nichols announced a $105 million plan called the “Road To Repair,” a charitable trust that will direct funds toward housing, cultural preservation, and the purchase of land for the families of survivors of the massacre. It comes at a time when known survivors of the massacre, of whom there are only a few, are passing away, leaving the history and legacy of Greenwood to their descendants.
“It's about instilling confidence in Black businesses, that you don't need any help other than your community to do what you need to do,” said The Breed Co-Founder Aaron Rogers at a press conference before the event last week. “We're empowering them and educating them and letting them know that we all have each other.”
Those words sprang to life Saturday, as visual artists, authors, clothing designers, fierce knitters, proud plant parents, beauty practitioners and social service providers all fanned out across the Green, most beneath tents that created a brightly colored patchwork from above.
As food trucks fired up their cooktops and emcee Frank Brady took the stage, vendors put finishing touches on their booths, from signs and banners to balloons. Onstage, Brady’s excitement was contagious: it rippled out into a growing, dancing crowd, out past crafting stations and social service providers to vendors making their first sales of the day.
Beneath a tent festooned with white and teal-colored balloons, longtime stylist Jazmi Zanders chatted with passers-by about her forthcoming children’s book, Koral’s Big Hair Day. The product of years of work, the book tells the story of a young Black girl who visits a hair salon for the first time, and is nervous because she doesn’t know what to expect. As her character takes a seat in the stylist’s chair, Zanders walks a reader through each step of the process.
Zanders, who runs the salon Jazmiup Experience in West Haven, began thinking about the story several years ago, when she noticed how much anxiety young kids experienced when getting their hair cut or styled for the first time. When she looked for a resource that met them where they were, it didn’t exist. So she created one. After 16 years of doing this work, she’s excited to share it with the community.
Top: Stylist Jazmi Zanders, whose book drops September 16 through Aspenne's Library. Bottom: LIT New Haven's Kebra Smith-Bolden, who was the keynote speaker at an economic development summit from Communities for Generations, Inc. (CFG) at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) earlier this week.
“We don’t talk about it enough,” she said. As a stylist, she’s seen firsthand how some adults may brush off children’s nerves as simply part of a new experience. But as a mom and a professional, she knows how real and jarring that anxiety can feel in a kid’s body. “They don’t always know how it’s going to go.”
That is, until now: Koral’s Hair Salon is a sort of step-by-step guide, with vibrant illustrations from Anastasia Hoffman that bring Zanders’ Savin Avenue salon to life. Saturday, she said, she was proud to be presenting it at BWS Fest for the first time. Beside bottles of her MyRoots serum, she had placed a sign-up sheet for pre-orders of the book, which drops through the publisher Aspenne’s Library on September 16.
“I’m having a blast!” she said of the festival, adding high praise for Aspenne’s Library founder Patricia Bellamy-Mathis. She said she was especially glad not just for the chance to support other Black-owned businesses that she loves—a pink-splashed booth for Trachouse Salon was just across the way—but also to network and meet Black business owners who were completely new to her.
The Grow City Depot team.
Just a few tents away, cousins Dedrick Howard and Derrick Wilson of Grow City Depot stood surrounded by a sea of green leaves, from marbled, low-maitenance Golden Pothos plants to tiny pink and yellow cacti that poked their spiky heads toward the sun. Born in South Carolina and raised in South Carolina and West Haven, Howard said that he started the business last year, inspired by the gardens that surrounded him while he was growing up.
“It’s something that I realized is such an essential tool,” he said. As a kid in Hendersonville, South Carolina, Howard was accustomed to a big garden, acutely aware of how connected he was to the earth beneath his feet. When his family moved to West Haven a few years later, his parents made sure to keep that bond growing, with an indoor plant room in their home that wasn’t thrown off by New England winters.
Now, he’s trying to share that joy with others. The business, which opened last year, has a brick-and-mortar spot at 1700 Dixwell Ave. in Hamden, but also experiments with pop-ups like BWS Fest. Saturday marked his first time vending at Black Wall Street, but likely not his last.
“This is great!” Howard said as he motioned to the businesses buzzing around him. “It’s a great environment. It’s great for the community.”
Top: Artist Tomi Handy. Bottom: Artist Arizona Taylor, who moved to New Haven seven years ago.
That sense of camaraderie echoed for artist Tomi Handy, a social worker with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) whose vibrant, large-scale cut glass murals help her unwind from the stress of her job. Growing up in New Haven, Handy was a dancer long before she was ever a visual artist, soaking in classes with her aunt Robyn and Dee Dee Morris at Ms. Dee Dee’s School of Dance.
As a kid, dance was the constant in Handy’s life: it was there as she grew up, transitioning from parochial school to James Hillhouse High School when St. Mary’s closed her junior year. It was there as she grew her repertoire, from ballet and tap to jazz and hip hop. It was there even as she outgrew the formal dance studio, and became a social worker: she now turns to dance as a release when she’s at home, dancing by herself even if no one is around to see it.
Somewhere along the way, visual art began to call to her too. Years ago, she had the chance to paint the walls of Ms. Dee Dee’s Dance Center. More recently, she decided to do a cut glass mural in her home, and had bags of extra glass left over that she didn’t want to waste. She started making her compositions during the Covid-19 pandemic, as a way to still her mind as the world shut down around her. It was an antidote to an already-stressful job, made more stressful by the constraints of the pandemic.
Top: Candice Williams of Herbal Jones Tea, who has watched the festival's evolution over four years, catches up with Jacqui Glover. "I feel like this is an elevated version of tea," Williams said. "They're made with love, truth and intention." Bottom: Melba Crowley of Designs by Melba.
“It was very therapeutic,” she said. Around her, pieces of mirrored glass on the canvases sparkled and shone: black satin pointe shoes, glittery versions of the earth with pristine blue oceans, sleek, trim ballerinas in their bright tutus and leotards. She didn’t expect to be vending at Black Wall Street this year—”I feel like I’m still learning every day,” she said—but her husband signed her up as a surprise.
“It’s an awesome thing,” she said of the festival as “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” boomed from the stage across the grass. “We’re not trying to exclude anybody, we’re just trying to show our talents, and to see how many more vendors are out here [this year] is awesome.”
At times, her tent felt like a family reunion: someone inside called out as Kulturally LIT’s IfeMichelle Gardin walked by in a brilliant, emerald-colored shawl, and the girlish, excited squealing of two long-lost friends ensued. In that oh-so-New-Haven way, someone called out “You’re a Huckaby, right?” to Gardin, and a string of memories about the Huckaby and Handy families followed.
At one point, Handy slid next to a large work with a young ballerina in a high, starched pink tutu and beamed, her smile radiant. It’s her favorite piece of late, because it reminds her of the excitement of being backstage, just behind the curtain.
Top: Sisters Christiana and Mell Massaquoi. Bottom: Xan Walker does her thing.
Those good vibes were everywhere, it seemed. As they perused jewelry from Designs By Melba, sisters Mell and Christiana Massaquoi took a beat to soak in the festival, still basking in the glow of their brother John’s performance with the Blue Steel Drumline earlier in the afternoon. Already, the two had visited multiple vendors, picking up all-natural sugar scrubs, face cream, and dainty plants, small enough to cradle in one palm, by mid-afternoon.
Now, they were waiting on chicken and mouth-watering sides from the Hill-based institution Sandra’s Next Generation, one of several food options that lined Temple Street. The restaurant is an ode to food and family, served up by lifelong New Havener Sandra Harris-Pittman and her husband, Miguel Pittman.
“It’s pretty exciting!” Mell said, noting how many friends from elementary, middle and high school they’d already run into, after years of not connecting. “I love supporting Black-owned businesses every time I go to an event like this,” so a celebration with only Black entrepreneurs felt empowering.
“It’s a positive way to connect with and support each other,” added Christiana. “It’s like a little reunion. You see people you haven’t seen in years.”
Jessica Smith and Zaki Michael of Agape Unconditional.
As the two shared their thoughts, Designs by Melba founder Melba Crowley greeted potential customers, walking them through designs that included bone and mother-of-pearl baubles, Czech glass and stone beads, and necklaces in deep reds and blues that glowed in the light.
Over the past four years, she’s watched Black Wall Street grow from a modest festival in Temple Plaza to a day-long event on the Green. With a mischievous smile, she said that the only drawback to more vendors is more competition for her.
“I think it’s good,” she said, stopping at a beaded necklace that burned a fiery, seductive orangey red. “I won’t know until the end of the day.”
Back across the Green, designers Jessica Smith and Zaki Michael of Agape Unconditional bounced between customers, sunlight falling over their faces. Based in Newark, New Jersey, the two had gotten up early to make the trip to New Haven, on the road with a trunk full of their signature apparel by 5 a.m. One of their earliest customers was The Breed Co-Founder Rashad Johnson, who rocked an Agape Jacket for part of the afternoon.
Born and raised in New Jersey, Smith said the brand is “made from love through and through,” including and most of all in its name, and the familial inspiration behind it. Agape—Greek for “unconditional love”—is a word Smith first learned from her dad years ago, around 2018. For years, she thought about the word, aware that it was tugging at a creative impulse within her. She finally built the apparel line, which operates through pop-ups and wholesalers, in 2021.
“It’s streetwear merged with a classic look,” meant to represent both love and health, she said. And it is: Agape announces itself with an anatomical heart, a brown eye blinking out from where the right atrium should otherwise be. An orange flame rises behind the right pulmonary veins; bursts of green weave through the left pulmonary artery. A splash of blue up top and the word “Agape” in thick, gold letters at the bottom complete the tableau.
Behind the design is a belief in love at all levels, she said: Smith is also the vice principal at an elementary school, and folds the brand into mentorship programs with apparel giveaways for things like good grades and attendance. Michael, who is the brand ambassador and a designer himself, is also a college and career readiness counselor.
Further back, attendees soaked in the sun amidst live artists doing their thing. Tucked neatly beside the Green’s fountain, lifelong New Havener Leroy Parks sketched Sonia Bethea, listening for the rhythmic slap of jump rope on pavement behind him. Each time it came, members of the 40+ Double Dutch Club seemed to smile even more brightly.
The New Haven chapter of the club, helmed by line dance teacher Xan Walker, meets every Saturday afternoon at the Dixwell Community “Q” House, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. Walker, who became captain in January, said that the group rests (or more aptly, jumps) on four central pillars: fitness, fun, friendship and fellowship.
As Walker got the jump ropes going, Dinah Turner hopped in to flex her skills. Raised in the city’s Hill neighborhood, Turner now lives in Dixwell, and said she was excited to come out Saturday to support business owners including friends of hers. It marked her second time at the festival.
“I love it!” said Turner as she finished jumping, and stepped over to a cluster of hula hoops nearby. She picked up a rainbow-patterned one and began spinning. “I’ve seen people that come back every year, just for this.”