On March 9, For The Culture hosted the first BLK Market in Richmond, Virginia, to showcase the diversity of the area’s Black-owned businesses. For The Culture, a collective of Black employees at Arts & Letters Creative Co., a creative advertising agency in Richmond.
As Alana Robinson, For The Culture’s marketing and design representative, told ABC 8, “We wanted to showcase Black people that are doing amazing work in collecting and vintage, and things you don’t traditionally see, gather them all together and really give them a place to be successful.”
The group’s public relations representative, Lauren Hudson, told the outlet that the event took half a year to plan and execute.
“It started in late summer. We brainstormed a lot of different ideas on how we could work with the Black community in Richmond and how we can help enrich that, and settled on BLK Market,” Hudson said. “And, yeah, we started vendor outreach and putting all the pieces together, and here we are.”
The event, according to the pair, was a labor of love centered around the part of the Richmond community that they love and wanted to see get a piece of the spotlight. The BLK Market had a range of items available for purchase, including books, pottery, paintings, and tea.
Robinson told ABC 8 that though there are events like vendor fairs and markets, there was none like BLK Market, which aims to showcase Black businesses year-round instead of just during February when Black History Month is celebrated.
Hudson continued, “We hope it grows. We hope we learn a lot this first year. That we get the word out. That we’re able to continue this for years to come, and maybe it gets bigger and bigger, and bigger spaces,” Hudson said. “And that we have more participation from the community.”
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