SHOPPE BLACK, Author at SHOPPE BLACK

Farmers Market on Wheels Brings Fresh Produce to Brooklyn Food Deserts

April 25, 2019

4 mins read

Brooklyn Borough President Eric L. Adams and The Campaign Against Hunger, joined by Councilmember Alicka Ampry-Samuels, presented on Wednesday the “Fresh Vibes Mobile Market,” a retrofitted RV that will bring affordable produce, cooking and nutrition workshops combined with social services to underserved Brooklyn neighborhoods.

The initiative kicked off at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center in East Flatbush, a community facing some of the highest levels of food insecurity in Brooklyn.

“Hippocrates said to ‘let food be thy medicine,’” said Adams. “The ‘Fresh Vibes Market’ is a vehicle for change, a fresh approach to combating diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, obesity and other chronic illnesses that are preventable and reversible through dietary changes. This RV will help us navigate Brooklynites in need through the challenges of accessing some of the basic services that are just in arms’ reach.”

The mobile unit will make three stops per day, five days a week to offer below-market price produce grown locally by TCAH and will accept benefit programs such as Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT); Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program (FMNP), as well as Women, Infants and Children (WIC).

Equipped with a cooktop and refrigeration, produce storage bins, a classroom and a benefits access area, the RV will be staffed with a chef-educator, an outreach worker and a SNAP specialist to offer cooking demonstration and workshops, as well as SNAP screenings, job referral services and even fitness classes.

The “Fresh Vibes Market” targets the most underserved Brooklynites including the elderly, new mothers, children, students, NYCHA residents and undocumented immigrants, allowing TCAH further expand its mission to increase access to healthy foods in high-need areas.

“TCAH’s core mission is to empower our neighbors to lead healthier, more productive and self-sufficient lives by increasing their access to nutritious food and related resources,” said Dr. Samuels, founder and executive director of TCAH. “Unlike other emergency feeding programs, our primary goal for this vehicle is to increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables by engaging families to make healthier eating choices and to introduce measures that can make a dent in high levels of chronic disease.”

(L-r:) Councilmember Ampry-Samuel, BP Adams and TCAH Executive Director Dr. Samuels on board the Fresh Vibes Market RV. Photo credit: CM Ampry-Samuel/ Twitter.

The launch of the mobile market also marks the beginning of numerous outreach campaigns, developed by TCAH in partnership with Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center, to eliminate barriers to food access and social services in the community, officials announced.

“We know that improving access to healthy foods and needed social services are key to one’s overall health,” said Enid Dillard, director of marketing and public affairs at Kingsbrook Jewish Medical Center. “We look forward to growing this partnership and impacting the lives of those who are food insecure within our communities.”

Source: BK Reader

Couples, Inc. : Java and Michelle Help the Environment by Putting Your Food Waste to Work

April 22, 2019April 5, 2020

6 mins read

Java’s Compost is a family-owned, full-service composting company that seeks to make composting as fast and convenient as possible. The husband and wife team, Java and Michelle Bradley of South Orange, NJ, provide on-site composting equipment and services to sustainably dispose of food waste.

Their services include weekly at-home composting, consultation services, and the provision of a starter composting kit for customers’ homes. Additionally, excess household compost can be donated on the customer’s behalf to Java’s Compost’s urban farm partners in Newark.

We couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate earth day than to spotlight a company that is doing their part to save the environment.

How did you both meet?

Michelle: We met in Massachusetts in 1992 as freshmen at Amherst College. We were mostly just friends there and luckily, didn’t start dating until after we graduated.

What inspired you to start a business together?

Michelle: Honestly, it wasn’t totally thought through. Java became really passionate about composting as a result of managing the compost system at a charter school in Newark. The transformation of taking what is normally considered trash and giving it a second chance at life, by turning into compost, was fascinating to him.

I, on the other hand, was completely repulsed by the idea and it literally took me years to even consider composting. I grew up in NYC and Java is from San Francisco so that should shed some light as to why!

After seeing the documentary, DIRT, the movie, I did a complete 180 and started to feel incredibly guilty when I threw away food. If I could feel this way, we knew there had to be other people that did too. So the idea to start a food scraps recycling service was born.

How do you balance being parents and business owners?

Michelle: Wow, great question. It’s anything but easy and most of the time we aren’t that successful at it. For the first year in business, all our “down time” would be spent working and much of it still is.

But we still make sure we keep up with our boys’ basketball practices and games, even if it means we have to bring some work along to do in between games or while we’re waiting for practices to be done.

Java’s Compost

Describe your individual personalities and how you blend them to make the business work?

Michelle: Blend them? We’re still working on that! Java and I are very different and going into business together has brought that out even more clearly. He is a gentle soul that would give away all his knowledge and expertise for free if he could.

He is extremely patient and works at a pace you would expect from a California kid. He is meticulous so his work is extremely thorough.

Java’s Compost

I, on the other hand, am the opposite. Growing up in Manhattan, I learned to do most things pretty quickly, which can serve a purpose but is not always good. I need to practice being more patient and also need to work on toning down my critical nature. My strengths lie in my ability to connect with people and get out there and hustle to help our business get to the next level.

What advice do you have for other couples in business together?

Michelle: Be willing to learn about and acknowledge your strengths and weaknesses. Be open to working on them but also be realistic in your expectations of one another. Java and I have been together for 22 years, so all our quirks and habits are pretty ingrained in us as is our dynamic.

Java’s Compost

Going into business together won’t change any of those things and may heighten them as you work through all the growing pains of starting a business. I think we went into a little naive thinking it will be “fun”. Some parts are fun and some challenging. Building something from nothing, together, is the best part.

Where do you see the business in 5 years?

Michelle: In 5 years, we hope Java’s Compost is known as the solution to residential and small scale commercial food waste production in Northern New Jersey. We want all people to understand that their food waste has value.

Right now, that is very hard to see when all food waste either gets piled up in a smelly landfill or burned in an incinerator. We’re trying to educate people that composting your food scraps reduces your garbage by more than 50% and that it actually turns into a valuable, useable product.

Java’s Compost

Composting can do everything from helping combat climate change to restore our nutrient depleted soils. Continuing to throw food in the trash isn’t sustainable and since we only have one planet that’s habitable at the moment, the sooner we adopt composting as the norm instead of the exception, the better it will be for all of us.

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)

TUSKEGEE HEIRS CREATORS MIX HISTORY WITH FANTASY TO CREATE HIT KIDS COMIC

April 20, 2019

12 mins read

In 2016, artist Marcus Williams and writer Greg Burnham came out of nowhere with a Kickstarter for a comic book concept that blew everyone away.

They took the real-life story of the famous Tuskegee Airmen, the first black military aviators in the U.S. Army Air Corps (the precursor to the U.S. Air Force) and updated it with kids and superpowered mechs to create Tuskegee Heirs.

TUSKEEGEE HEIRS

The story is set 80 years in the future and follows five young pilots who are being trained by a fictional descendant of one of the real-life Tuskegee Airmen. They end up being the last line of defense against an advanced robot army and, in turn, getting an upgrade to their jets, giving them the ability to transform into giant robots.

Needless to say, Williams and Burnham’s concept was a hit, and they made their initial ask of $10,000 in the first three hours of the Kickstarter’s launch. Today, they are three issues in and dropping the first full volume of Tuskegee Heirs very soon.

SYFY WIRE caught up with the creative team at C2E2 to ask what it was like creating their first indie comic on their own and what they would change if they had to do it all over again.

TUSKEEGEE HEIRS

Growing up, what was your favorite comic book?

Williams: I didn’t have a favorite growing up until someone gave me a Wolverine comic. That was my very first, and it kind of blew my mind. I was drawing Street Fighter and video game characters like Sonic, and then someone shows me this guy with claws popping out of his hands, and he couldn’t get killed because he had healing factor, and it blew my mind! It was drawn by Jim Lee then. So that was my first comic art explosion moment. Then the cartoon came out, and maybe a few months after I got that first book. And now I hate the movies because they ruined what I saw as a child.

Burnham: Spider-Man. I remember my first memories were living in England as a military kid, and the main thing I remember is I’ve always had this Spider-Man toy. He had Velcro on his hands and feet, he went with me everywhere.

So I was just always in love with Spider-Man, but I realized as I get older, it wasn’t just because he was cool but it was because he was young, he was into the arts, he had to have a job, like all these different things. He was realistic. I’m not trying to diss DC, but a lot of their characters were real linear, like just a good person with powers.

So you probably saw Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse a few times.

Burnham: I bought out a theater for it. Not a whole theater. More like half a theater. Yeah. I’ve seen it many, many times.

So when did you decide creating comics is something you could do for a living?

Williams: I was always drawing on things. I was failing classes because of it. My teachers praised me and also scolded me at the same time. I had no idea I could make a living [at it].

For a long time I wanted to be an animator, until I was old enough to see how much work animation is, and it was then that I decided I didn’t want to be an animator anymore. So comics was it for me.

Burnham: As a kid, I would create my own comics. I was terrible at drawing, but I liked writing. Many years later, after I had kids and moved to Atlanta, I had this idea to do this comic book. I knew I could write, but I couldn’t find anybody [to draw it] until one of my friends introduced me to Williams. And Williams was able to draw the characters the way I wanted them to look and better.

What was your first published comic?

Williams: My first published comic was Hero Cats of Stellar City, and that was with Action Lab Comics. It was exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of cats who were heroes. The actual creator was like, “Hey, man, you know how to draw cats?” And I was like, “I have no idea. Let’s give it a shot.” He was a comic shop owner who had daughters who loved cats, and he wanted something that he thought would be really easy to market. He was so right, cats are super easy to market, and the fans were some of the most passionate people on the planet.

After that, did you decide to try self-publishing or did you continue to draw other work for other people?

Williams: No, it was directly after. I figured I understood the business enough. I did actually ask a million questions when I worked with Action Lab, I paid close attention to the business side of comics. So that helped me to understand how they make their money as a publisher.

From that, it literally opened up a lot of the conversations I had between my business partner/writer Burnham and myself. Everything up to that point, we don’t know what we’re doing. So it helped a lot once I learned the business.

Why the Tuskegee Airmen? Why Tuskegee Heirs? Where did the concept come from?

Burnham: During a children’s book signing, an older gentleman put the seed in our ear. He was kind of mean in hindsight, actually. He walked up to our table [at a convention], looked at our stuff and said, “This is nice, but you guys should have stuff about pilots and planes. These kids don’t know anything about history …”

Williams told me later that he was thinking about drawing some young Tuskegee Airmen, and then I had the idea to put it in the future. Then he said we should add robots and our heads exploded and it just started coming together.

It has a very manga/anime feel. Were you a fan of manga growing up in anime?

Burnham: I would say I wasn’t as much as a fan as Williams is.

Williams: Any large robot that you can think of. It goes all the way back to Voltron, Transformers. Gundam, of course, when I was younger. Oh, and Macross. When the internet came out I finally understood how many different anime there were that featured giant robots and team pilots. I knew I wanted to do something like this one day, even though I hate drawing machines. So that’s a conundrum.

Why do you hate drawing machines?

Williams: I don’t like straight lines. I hate them. I know it’s stupid, but I love human characters because they’re curved, and animals are too.

So when you did your Kickstarter, did you have any idea that it was going to be as big as it was?

Williams: No. We set our goals for $10K, and we were kind of worried about just meeting that, because we felt that might be a little much for our first time out. But eight hours after hitting the button on Kickstarter, we got $10K. From there, we screamed to ourselves and jumped around a little bit, and then 29 days later it was up to $74K.

And then the first volume dropped how long after that?

Williams: I would say it was at least a good six to eight months after, because we were literally working on the book and building the brand at the same time. So it worked out really well, but it was a lot of work between just two people.

And now you have three issues in total, right?

Williams: Yes. Issue 3 just came out not too many months ago. Now we’re going to have our first volume, our first graphic novel coming out in the next few weeks. So we can get that in the library in schools, which is great.

A lot of libraries and schools can’t take single issues because they’ll get torn to shreds by children. So finally we’ll have the first volume, Issues 1, 2, and 3 sandwiched together for them.

Now that you’ve been through this whole process of successfully creating your first comic, what’s your advice to somebody who wants to do the same thing?

Williams: Really learn the business, so you’ll understand how you’re going to make your money back. Not just the publishing, it’s printing, travel, hotels, all of these things. How you are going to reach your market, what shows to go to, what shows not to go to.

Talk to people that are doing what you’re trying to do and literally make those smart business decisions. It’s no different from any other business. If you open a restaurant and you don’t know how to reach your market, you can be the best chef in the world, you’re still going to have a closed restaurant if no one comes in to eat.

In terms of Kickstarter, the biggest mistake we made was not finishing the book first. That’s the best way to do it, once the Kickstarter is done, you just mail it out. So that was a really hard lesson. You have to grow and change as the industry grows and new methods of selling your products come out. Be flexible and keep learning.

Source: SYFY

Inside Cane, The D.C. Restaurant With Street Food From Trinidad

April 20, 2019

10 mins read

Bellying up to a metal table inside his new kitchen on H Street NE, Peter Prime lowers a long-reach lighter into a hole in a hand-held smoker and watches as it sucks the flame into a mixture of beech wood and coconut husks.

Peter Prime and his sister Jeanine Prime (Credit: City paper)

Smoke winds through a black tube inserted through a crack in the lid of a boxy plastic container, perfuming an ice cream base he’s made out of a milk he’s extracted from Dominican coconuts — the baby Thai ones are too inconsistent for his taste. Prime yanks the hose out of the box after a minute. The coconut milk has a lot of fat in it, he says, which will take on the smoke quickly.

Cane chef-owner Peter Prime is using Dominican coconuts to make his own coconut milk. Rey Lopez/Eater D.C.

Cane, Prime’s first restaurant venture as an owner, will open on Monday, April 22, at 403 H Street NE. He’s spent the past few weeks workshopping dishes that will replicate the street food he grew up eating on the island of Trinidad, a cuisine heavily impacted by enslaved people from Africa who worked the sugar cane fields and indentured workers from India who arrived during British rule.

The enthusiastic response Prime received for the Caribbean smokehouse style he developed at Spark at Old Engine 12 in Bloomingdale convinced him that D.C. was ready for him to further explore his roots. After training at the French Culinary Institute in New York and working with some of Washington’s most successful chefs — Michel Richard at Citronelle, Rob Weland at Poste Modern Brasserie, Todd Gray at Equinox — Prime has a toolbox of techniques to lean on while creating his version of food found largely on street corners and rum shops.

“We don’t have a huge eating out culture,” Prime says of Trinidad, “but food is central to all of our lives.”

At Cane, a soft-serve machine will pump out smoked coconut ice cream with a benne seed candy, and flavors like Guinness beer and rum raisin will rotate in for adults.

Appetizers will include doubles, a ubiquitous street food snack often eaten for breakfast. Prime compares them to tacos, except instead of a tortilla there is a frybread wrapper stuffed with curried chickpeas and a spicy relish. On the wall, there’s a painting that recreates a photograph of former President Barack Obama eating one during a state visit.

Prime served the frybreads at Spark, which closed its restaurant and became a full-time private events space in December, but they were deconstructed and served with different condiments. At Cane, they come on paper just like they do on the street in Trinidad.

Prime’s jerk chicken wings, the first Caribbean dish he experimented with selling, will also make the trip over from Spark. Grilled oxtails and brisket sliders will also be familiar to Prime followers, but the latter will come on hops bread, soft rolls he’ll be pulling fresh out of the oven every day for happy hour. Prime is continuing his whole snapper, too, deep-fried and tossed with pickled peppers.

Chef Peter Prime’s famous jerk wings. Tierney Plumb/Eater DC

Tiffin boxes, stackable sets of metal containers popular in India, will have containers for the Trinidadian paratha — or roti bread — and compartments for beef or duck curries and vegetables.

“It’s kind of designed as a great appetizer for four or a meal for two,” Prime says.

Rich, fatty plates follow the tradition of rum shop dishes called “cutters” because they cut through the alcohol. That includes a cow heel soup and a geera (cumin) pork stew. At rum shops, Prime says, people usually get a bowl of ice and a bottle of rum to share while they casually eat and drink.

“Your palate is kind of being numbed by the straight alcohol,” he says. “The cutters wake it up. You enjoy the food more, and you enjoy the rum more.”

A robust rum program at Cane includes rhum agricole and spirits from heritage stills at Demerara in Guyana. Customers will be able to sample rum flights, and a fresh juice program forms the base of cocktails. That includes a sweet lime juice that goes into Prime’s rum punch and mauby, a sweet and bitter concoction made from steeping a Caribbean bark.

To recreate the feel of the rum shops back home, Prime enlisted the help of his sister, Jeanine Prime, who partnered with him to open Cane. Jeanine, who holds a Ph.D. in social psychology as well as an MBA, remembers watching Julia Child on TV with her brother and their mother.

“It’s been a dream for a long time to open this thing,” she says. “Maybe back in 2006 we were kind of dreaming about going into business together.”

Distressed wood lining the bottom of the bar, in the host stand, and in the painted shutters on the wall help mimic the vibe of lean-tos serving rum on the beach. More polished wood — on the seats of chairs, on the floors, in tabletops and banquettes — reinforces the feeling.

The showpiece is a textured white wall that’s made out of a composite formed from recycled sugar cane.

Jeanine Prime says she’s most excited to eat her brother’s oxtails, a staple from their childhood. Peter Prime has had to coach his butcher to cut them the right way so every customer gets a tiny, exposed pocket of bone marrow. Another dish she’s looking forward to eating is the pepper pot, a rich stew that has both pork and cow heel.

“Pepper pot we have every Christmas for breakfast actually, a bowl of meat,” she says while laughing.

Both siblings say they were never excited about cooking home food when they were younger. They didn’t appreciate it until it wasn’t a regular part of their lives anymore.

Peter Prime says his path of coming full circle may feel a little cliche. But once he started experimenting with Caribbean food, it had a powerful impact on him. It made him remember where he came from, how he was shocked when he was scolded by a culinary school instructor for dousing a roasted chicken with black pepper because he was raised to love spice.

“The light kind of flickered and came on, and it was just like, this is what I do,” Prime says. “This is how you bring soul to your food.”

At a time when Washington is seeing an influx of island food through the prism of white vacationers — recent openings include the island-hopping Coconut Club in Union Market and Tiki TNT at the Wharf — Cane’s Afro-Caribbean chef authors a love letter to the daily sustenance of the diverse people of Trinidad.

Prime doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder anymore. He’s not trying to show every French technique in his arsenal. He’s just trying to put his story on a plate.

“In a place like D.C. with so much going on in the food scene, I feel like for your contribution to be relevant, it has to be from somewhere real,” he says, “somewhere you can bring a unique perspective.”

Source: Eater DC

This Overlooked Black Photographer Documented Generations

April 20, 2019April 20, 2019

10 mins read

“Art is the totality of our being, the totality of our experience,” says John Simmons. “Every time I press the shutter, it’s the totality of who I am and all that I’ve experienced.”

The veteran photographer and cinematographer, who came of age in Chicago, has been tirelessly documenting the world around him since the 1960s, putting a spotlight on the minutiae of life, reveling in the beauty of intimate moments, and celebrating the unseen details of Black culture — a couple tenderly caressing on public transit; a church lady deeply, joyously overcome in a praise song; a young man, Will, proudly spread out on a Chevy automobile.

Simmons calls his documentarian eye an “intuitive quality that transcends time,” a befitting sentiment that his photographs reflect to a tee. His black and white images offer a seamless visual connection between decades, cities, and diasporas.

Simmons’s career began in his mid-teens, when Bobby Sengstacke, a well-known Civil Rights photojournalist in Chicago, gave him a copy of The Sweet Flypaper of Life. The literary collaboration between Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes and famed Kamoinge photographer Roy DeCarava interweaves image and text to chronicle a day in the life of a Harlem grandmother and her loved ones. Simmons found himself immediately inspired by the ability of these images to tell day-to-day truths of city life.

John Simmons, “The Nation,” Nashville, TN

“I started taking photographs at a very interesting time and in a very interesting environment,” Simmons tells me over the phone. “Chicago was a very hip place in the ’60s, and it was a very politically active place. […] Growing up in the Black community of Chicago, there’s an affinity to the subject matter. My imagery basically reflects the life I live, as it does today.”

Much of his work weaves a faithful, touching historic archive of Black Chicagoans and their everyday. (Simmons’s work, however, is not entirely limited to Black individuals. As he traveled outside of Chicago, he began to photograph a number of diasporic communities, touching on the interconnectivity of the cross-cultural human experience.)

Since his jumpstart in ’60s, Simmons’s archive of images grew more and more as he traveled across the globe. As his career progressed, he traveled across the United States and around the world to document aesthetics of the Black disapora, visually tying them together through black and white photography.

He photographed boys in Trinidad and Tobago, Black Panthers in Tennessee, and nannies in Chicago, but their stories laced into one another through his intimate style of image making. He went on to photograph candid moments of iconic figures in Civil Rights and Black liberation movements, like Rosa Parks, Amiri Baraka, Nina Simone, and Angela Davis.

John Simmons, “Boys with Cannon” (2009), Trinidad and Tobago

“Like a style of writing, it’s a style of seeing,” he says of his work. “A lot of people say that there’s a real continuity from my first photograph to my most recent photograph.”

His subjects seldom seem bothered by the camera’s presence; those who appear aware of the lens, welcome it — perhaps because Simmons made them feel at ease, as a familiar face in the streets of Chicago, Nashville, and beyond.

“I don’t know my subjects, I just take pictures,” he says. “My relationship to them is basically being grateful for them to be there. All my stuff happens in an instant. Whatever I’m photographing, if I look at it, it’s probably gone.”

“Our paths have to cross at that moment for that to happen, and the timing is so important, it can’t happen any other way. It’s supposed to happen at that moment,” he muses. “It’s amazing how all their experiences have brought them to that moment and all of my experiences have brought me to that moment, allowing us to share that moment in time and give it to everybody. I think it’s so amazing it gives me chills.”

John Simmons, Angela Davis Free Nashville TN 1972.

Simmons speaks of his work with deserved pride. He pinpoints his 1965 photograph “Man With a Pistol” as a transcendent moment in his artistic course, calling it one of the first photographs he ever fell in love with.

But after decades of photographing, nearly all of his work was lost in a fire.

As he planned to move apartments, he stored his work in a friend’s garage. Just days later, he received a call telling him the garage had caught fire. He tucked his pants into his socks, he says, trekking amongst the rubble and the rats (he discovered that there had been grains stored in the garage that he had not been informed of) and went to rescue his negatives.

He found everything stuck together; much was tainted by water damage. He then began the serious, painstaking process of trying to rescue these negatives. There are still photos he hasn’t recovered, and some he is still rediscovering when old friends send him scans of the images he’d gifted along the years, as he regathers his impressive body of work.

In a tragic instant, Simmons’s integral images of Black history were nearly lost — many still are. But those that remain, sing triumphantly, and sweetly.

Though an Emmy Award-winning cinematographer and professor of cinematography at the University of California, Los Angeles, Simmons’s photographic work has been far less known. The fire was a wakeup call; Simmons knew he needed to create a mark for himself and his historical work.

John Simmons, “The Black Man” (1969), New York, NY

After a friend introduced Simmons to Perfect Exposure Gallery in Los Angeles, Simmons had his first solo show, It Started in the 60s, in 2016. Anxiously anticipating his public debut as an art photographer, Simmons says he didn’t know how his work would be received.

His next show with the gallery, Life in Black and White, occurred in 2018; in just two months, over 2,000 people visited the exhibition, newly introduced to a vital new collection of images and a firsthand perspective on Black experiences since the 1960s.

“It gave new life to what those pictures were about,” he says of the exhibition.

Simmons still carries a camera every day. His website is an expansive, fascinating digital gallery of its own accord. “I never stopped taking pictures,” he says. But since the ’60s, “I feel like I’ve matured in my vision, in my storytelling. I feel like I express the narrative of humanity better now than I did when I was young. […] I have a real affection to this experience that we’re all having. If I didn’t do this, I don’t know what I would do.”

Source: Hyperallergic

Johnson Publishing Company Files for Bankruptcy

April 9, 2019

6 mins read

Chicago’s historic Johnson Publishing Company has filed for bankruptcy, court records show.

The Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition was filed late Tuesday afternoon by the company once responsible for Ebony and Jet magazines. It sold the magazines in 2016, meaning Tuesday’s move does not affect the publications.

“This decision was not easy, nor should it have been,” the company said in a press release announcing the move. “Johnson Publishing Company is an iconic part of American and African American history since our founding in 1942, and the company’s impact on society cannot be overstated.”

The company said it “was caught in a tidal wave of marketplace changes and business issues which, despite exhaustive efforts, could not be overcome.” It said it hoped to maximize the value of its assets through a sale which would benefit its creditors.

The filing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago is a painful reminder of how far the company has fallen since its heyday as one of the most recognizable African American brands in the nation.

The late John H. Johnson, the company’s founder, had turned a $500 loan borrowed against his mother’s furniture into one of the country’s most successful African-American-owned corporations.

His Ebony and Jet magazines inspired countless black youths — former President Barack Obama among them — and he used his position to donate millions to African American educational and civil rights causes.

Ebony began publishing in November 1945 with a promise “to mirror the happier side of Negro life — the positive, everyday achievements from Harlem to Hollywood. But when we talk about race as the No. 1 problem of America, we’ll talk turkey.”

Jet followed in 1951. The two magazines portrayed successful blacks — doctors, lawyers, businessmen and black celebrities — in a glossy magazine format in an era when such publications were typically filled with images of white, fair-haired men and women.

Johnson sought to present a dignified, well-rounded portrayal of African-Americans that would inspire future generations. He succeeded in creating a record of black culture considered by some to be more authoritative than the Library of Congress or any encyclopedia.

The publishing icon died at the age of 87 in 2005, six decades after Ebony hit the stands. Johnson’s Chicago funeral drew several civil rights leaders, as well as former President Bill Clinton.

Accepting life’s disadvantages as challenges to be met, John H. Johnson adhered to his philosophy of optimism and created multimillion-dollar publishing empire that Includes Ebony and Jet magazines.

The magazines also took crucial editorial stands. In 1955, Jet published an open-coffin photograph of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Chicago boy who was slaughtered by white men in Mississippi for allegedly whistling at a white woman. The photo’s publication was credited with galvanizing the American civil rights movement.

In Ebony’s first issue, an editorial commented on fair employment legislation following World War II.

“The Negro soldier and sailor want to come home to an America that has wiped out the ‘white supremacy’ practices which meant the downfall of Hitlerism in Germany,” it said. “They want to come home to a United States where a job no longer has a color.”

The years since Johnson’s death have been difficult for the company he left behind. In 2010, it sold its home of nearly 40 years — its building at 820 South Michigan — to Columbia College Chicago. The company moved into the building after its completion in 1972.

In his biography, Johnson wrote of having to buy the property through a proxy because of unwillingness to sell to an African American.

Still, Johnson Publishing asserted that its building — designed by architect John Moutoussamy — was the first important Chicago structure designed by an African American since Jean Baptiste Pointe DuSable’s cabin two centuries earlier.

The building became a centerpiece for black culture and trends during the heyday of Ebony and Jet — a destination for celebrities and politicians seeking to align themselves with the Johnson family.

In 2014, Jet ceased print editions and became a digital-only publication. In 2016, Ebony and Jet were sold to Clear View Group, an equity firm in Texas. Johnson Publishing then turned its attention to its archives and cosmetics business, Fashion Fair Cosmetics.

Source: Chicago Sun Times

The Ultimate List of Black Owned Farms & Food Gardens

April 6, 2019July 1, 2023

10 mins read

Black owned farms make up less than 2 percent of all farms in the United States.

According to a recent report, Black farmers lost 80 percent of their farmland from 1910 to 2007, often because they lacked access to loans or insurance needed to sustain their businesses.

The report mentions the “long and well-documented history of discrimination against Black farmers by the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture).”

It goes on to state that “The unequal administration of government farm support programs, crucial to protecting farmers from an inherently risky enterprise, has had a profound impact on rural communities of color.”

It is clear that that Black farmers need help now more than ever. We also need fresh produce they provide. Here is a list of Black owned farms and food gardens that you can support.

Black Owned Farms

Connecticut

Root Life (New Haven, CT)

The DMV Area (DC, MD, VA)

DC

Good Sense Farm (Washington, DC)

Three Part Harmony (Washington, DC)

Soilful City (Washington, DC)

Sylvanaqua Farms (Washington, DC/Norfolk, VA)

MD

Cherry Hill Urban Garden (Cherry Hill, MD)

Deep Roots Farm (Brandywine, MD)

Dodo Farms (Brookeville, MD)

Four Mother’s Farm (Princess Anne, MD)

Jenny’s Market (Friendship, MD)

The Bladensburg Farm (Riverdale, MD)

Tha Flower Factory (Baltimore, MD)

VA

Haynie Farms (Reedville, VA)

Berrily Urban (Northern VA)

Botanical Bites Provisions (Fredericksburg, VA)

Boyd Farms (Nathalie VA)

Broadrock Community Garden (Richmond, VA)

Browntown Farms (Warfield, VA)

Brunswick Agriculture and Cultural Model Homesteading & Equestrian Center (Warfield , VA)

Carter Family Farm (Unionville, VA)

Cusheeba Earth: A Soil Culture Farm (Onley, VA)

Fitrah Farms (Central VA)

Go Greens Farms (Suffolk, VA)

Haynie Farm (Reedville, VA)

Mighty Thundercloud Edible Forest (Birdsnest, VA)

Mor-Cannabis (Scottsburg, VA)

Vanguard Ranch (Gordonsville, VA)

Verde Hemp Farms (Surry County, VA)

Florida

Harvest Blessing Garden (Jacksonville, FL)

Fisher Farms (Jonesville, FL)

Griffin Organic Poultry (Harthorne, FL)

Infinite Zion Roots Farms (Apopka, FL)

Ital Life Farm (Tampa, FL)

Marlow Farms (Kissimmee, FL)

Seed Mail Seed (West Palm Beach, FL)

Smarter By Nature LLC (Tallahassee, FL)

Georgia

Swanson Family Farm (Hampton, GA)

Southeastern African-American Farmers Organic Network (Atlanta, GA)

The Metro Atlanta Urban Farm (Royston, GA)

Semente Farm (Lithonia, GA)

Patchwork City Farms (Atlanta, GA)

Local Lands (Dublin, GA)

Miller City Farm (Fairburn, GA)

Nature’s Candy Farm (Atlanta, GA)

Noble Honey Company (Atlanta, GA)

Restoration Estates Farms (Haddock, GA)

Semente Farm (Lithonia, GA)

Tea Brew Farm (Central Georgia)

The Green Toad Hemp Farm (Metter, GA)

Truly Living Well (Atlanta, GA)

Illinois

AM Lewis Farms (Matteson, IL )

Black Oaks Center for Sustainable Living (Pembroke Township, IL)

Chi City Foods ( Chicago, IL)

Dusable City Ancestral Winery & Vineyards and Dusable City Botanical Farms

Roots & Vine Produce and Cafe (Chicago, IL)

Salem Hemp Kings (Salem, IL)

Urban Growers Collective (Chicago, IL)

Your Bountiful Harvest (Chicago, IL)

Kentucky

The Russellville Urban Gardening Project (Russellville KY)

Barbour Farm (Canmer, KY)

Ballew Estates (Madison Co, Kentucky)

Cleav’s Family Market Farm (Bonnieville, KY)

Slak Market Farm (Lexington, KY)

Louisiana

Armstrong Farms (Bastrop, LA)

Cryer’s Family Produce (Mount Hermon, LA)

Grow Baton Rouge (Baton Rouge, LA)

Laketilly Acres (New Orleans, LA)

Mama Isis Farm & Market (Baton Rouge, LA)

Oko Vue Produce Co (New Orleans, LA)

Provost Farm (Iberia Parish, LA)

Massachusetts

Agric Organics Urban Farming (Springfield, MA)

Urban Farming Institute of Boston (Mattapan, MA)

Maine

Annabessacook Farm (Winthrop, Maine)

Michigan

D-TownFarm (Detroit, MI)

Mississipi

Earcine (Cine`) Evans, founder of Francis Flowers & Herbs Farm

34th Street Wholistic Gardens & Education Center (Gulfport, MS )

Francis Flowers & Herbs Farm(Pickens, MS)

John H. Moody Farm (Soso, MS)

Morris Farms (Mound Bayou, MS)

RD & S Farm (Brandon, MS)

Field Masters Produce (Tylerton, MS)

Foot Print Farms (Jackson, MS)

Missouri

black owned farm — Will Witherspoon, CEO of Shire Gate Farm

Shire Gate Farm (Owensville, MO)

New Hampshire

New England Sweetwater Farm and Distillery (Winchester, NH)

New Jersey

Free Haven Farms (Lawnside, NJ)

Hawk Mountain Earth Center (Newark, NJ )

Hyah Heights (Newark, NJ )

Jerzey Buzz (Newark, NJ )

Morris Gbolo’s World Crop Farms (Vineland, NJ)

Ward’s Farm (Salem, NJ)

New York

Karen Washington, Co-Owner of Rise & Root Farm./ Twitter

Rise & Root Farm (Chester, NY)

East New York Farms (Brooklyn, NY)

Brooklyn Rescue Mission Urban Harvest (Brooklyn, NY)

Soul Fire Farm (Petersburg, NY)

North Carolina

Mother’s Finest Urban Farms (Winston Salem, NC)

Abanitu Farm (Roxboro, NC)

Fourtee Acres (Enfield, NC)

First Fruits Farm (Louisburg, NC)

Yellow Mountain Garden (Franklin, NC)

Pine Knot Farms (Hillsborough, NC)

Savage Farms (Durham, NC)

Green Heffa Farms (Liberty, NC)

Ohio

Rid-All Green Partnership (Cleveland, OH)

Oregon

Mudbone Grown (Portland, OR)

Rainshadow Organics (Sisters, OR)

Pennsylvania

The Philadelphia Urban Creators /Facebook

Mill Creek Farm (Philadelphia, PA)

The Philadelphia Urban Creators (Philadelphia, PA)

South Carolina

Fresh Future Farms/ Adam Chandler Photography

Fresh Future Farm (North Charleston, SC)

Gullah Farmers Cooperative (St. Helena Island, SC)

Morning Glory Homestead Farm (St. Helena Island, SC)

Rare Variety Farms (Columbia, SC)

SCF Organic Farms (Sumter, SC)

Texas

We Over Me Farm (Dallas, TX)

Bonton Farms (Dallas, TX)

Berkshire Farms Winery (Wilmer, TX )

Caney Creek Ranch (Oakwood, TX )

Fresh Life Organics (Houston, TX)

Lee Lover’s Clover Honey (Houston,TX)

Lettuce Live Urban Farm (Missouri City, TX)

Long Walk Spring Farm (New Boston, TX)

Uncommon Bees (Jasper, TX)

Vermont

Clemmons Family Farm (Charlotteville, VT)

Strafford Creamery (Strafford, VT)

Washington State

Sky Island Farm (Humptulips, WA)

Clean Greens (Seattle, WA)

International

Mwanaka Fresh Farm Foods (London)

-Tony O. Lawson

Special thanks to Ark Republic, whose Black Farmers Index was used to update portions of this list!

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(Feature Image: Adam Chandler Photography)

12 Nipsey Hussle Quotes About Business and Success

March 31, 2019April 8, 2019

4 mins read

Last night I clicked on an old video interview Nipsey Hussle did discussing his business ventures. That video led me to another and then another. I’ve always been impressed by his drive and focus.

Now, he’s gone. My way of paying tribute and my respects to someone who I was inspired by, is to provide some insight into the business acumen and intelligence of a man with so much potential, gone too soon.

Favorite Nipsey Hussle Quotes

“It sounds simple telling people to work hard and never quit, but to really execute and demonstrate those principles takes discipline and faith. Those are the two factors that I believe separate the good from the great; the successes from the failures.”

“Be truthful with yourself and other people, and try your best to make decisions outside of your ego.”

“You aren’t a true leader without the ability to be honest and take responsibility for your actions.”

“It isn’t cool to be in the club spending all of this money, or having cars and jewelry — but you don’t own any real estate? You don’t own a fourplex? If the answer is no, you’re not a real hustler.”

“At on point I wasn’t proud of my lifestyle..Now I wake up knowing that I’m doing what I’m here to do.”

“I’m more focused on giving solutions and inspiration more than anything.”

“When you start seeing the most successful people and the most respected people, the next step is figuring out how they became that…As far as respect goes, we have to stop respecting dumb shit. We have to return to old school principles.”

“We don’t want advances, we want equity. We don’t want one-off endorsements, we want ownership.”

“We’re creating an ecosystem, from production to consumption. Not only do we own the supply chain, but we can curate the experience. From the ownership of the actual master, to the retail experience and marketing the product, to consuming it. That’s the same model as Apple.”

“The vision is to launch franchises. There’s such a narrative to this parking lot—that’s a part of my story as an artist.”

“Have a plan. Have a step by step list of things to do to get to your goal. If you don’t have that, its hard to have faith in what you’re doing.”

“I’m focusing on the music, but I still got a cold library of books that I’ve either read or I plan on getting to.”

RIP NIPSEY HUSSLE

-Tony Oluwatoyin Lawson (IG@thebusyafrican)

Sassy’s Brings Its Vegetarian Soul Food to East Austin

March 21, 2019March 21, 2019

10 mins read

If you take a step into Andrea Dawson’s food truck, Sassy’s Vegetarian Soul Food, it’s like stepping into Grandma’s kitchen while she’s preparing a Sunday feast.

That familiar smell of red pepper and paprika immediately fills your nostrils, and the popping, hot oil signals it’s time to fry the chicken. In a city full of tacos and barbecue joints, the soul food circle is small, but Sassy’s food truck is joining that list with a vegetarian twist.

The words “vegetarian” and “soul food” in the same sentence would cause a head scratch from Black elders used to collard greens seasoned with turkey neck or chitterlings doused in hot sauce, but Dawson’s vegetarian soul food has even the biggest skeptics not only coming back for more, but claiming they don’t miss the meat with her cooking. “It’s just down-home cooking, without the meat,” Dawson said. “A lot of people are really amazed that it’s just hearty food.”

Sassy’s menu offers the usual soul food joint staples: fried cabbage, black-eyed peas, hot water cornbread, and a medley of collard, kale, and mustard greens.

But where you’d typically find bacon in fried cabbage, Dawson uses a vegan bacon substitute – which maintains the smoky flavor of regular bacon – and black-eyed peas’ meaty flavoring is substituted with a ginger and green onion mixture that brings out the smoky flavors.

But it’s not a true soul food feast without the well-seasoned, crunchy-skinned goodness of fried chicken, arguably the ultimate staple of good soul food. Dawson has created her own vegan version of fried chicken and waffles called “Chicon N Waffles,” an homage to the street where her food truck has been in operation since November 2018.

Instead of a soy-based meat substitute, Dawson uses wheat gluten – a natural protein found in wheat that creates vegetarian substitutes like seitan – to create the meatlike texture of her “chicon.” She then deep fries the wheat gluten and tosses it in hot lemon pepper, barbecue sauce, Carribean jerk, or Asian orange seasonings, and after one bite, any reservations about eating plant-based meat dishes have flown out the window.

“Sure enough, it looks like fried chicken,” Dawson joked, as pieces of “chicon” float to the top of the hot oil basket.

Before Dawson opened up her bright blue truck in East Austin, she wasn’t working her way up as a server in restaurants or bussing tables or working back of house on the line.

If she was in a restaurant, she was likely its entertainment for the night, serving up her renowned blues vocals. Dawson’s voice took her around the world from Brazil to China, but she ended up settling in Austin to be a singer in a blues band after living in Dallas for 30 years. As if a food truck owner’s origin story wasn’t already unusual, Dawson never really liked to cook.

As the oldest daughter of a large family, she often helped her mother prepare meals, and consequently any affinity she had for the kitchen just fizzled out as she got older. It wasn’t until Dawson developed digestive problems and needed to switch up her go-to recipes to improve her health that she crept back into cooking.

She decided to cut out meat for one week. Then two weeks, then three. After converting to a completely vegetarian diet, Dawson still craved her soul food favorites like fried cabbage, so she turned to YouTube for help, a move she unapologetically admits.

She watched countless how-to videos and learned to re-create the soul food dishes she missed, now with a plant-based focus. Turns out all the time she spent developing new, meat-free dishes sparked an idea: She began recipe testing for the Sassy’s menu as well.

“I started developing some of the [soul food] recipes and nothing was lacking,” Dawson said. “So it just got stuck.”

Her decision to open Sassy’s fell in her lap when along came a truck for sale. Dawson took the leap, purchased the truck – which was in “horrible shape” – and went to work fixing it with her own two hands.

The journey was fueled by a supportive network of friends, family, and even fans from all around the world, who convinced Dawson to buy the truck, helped name it Sassy’s, and invested in the business, including by buying restaurant tools she’d added to an Amazon wish list.

“I knew I was not going to be able to do all those fancy foods that I see vegan chefs do – I’m just going to do the stuff I grew up with, and that’s the best I can do,” Dawson said. “And so far, it’s been pretty good.”

The creation of Sassy’s was a collaborative project, one aimed at building a support system for a Black woman-owned business, a minority in Austin’s bustling entrepreneurial culture. On a small scale, Dawson sees Sassy’s as a form of reparations – with one of Dawson’s biggest investors being a white, female friend who had the financial means to invest in a Black-owned business.

“Because of her, I was able to realize a dream and open a business that could potentially hire more people, and to create jobs, and to create a legacy,” Dawson said. “Before she offered that help, there was no way I could have ever done this on my own.”

Sassy’s now joins a community of Black-owned businesses in East Austin that are up against the rapid effects of gentrification and its threat to displace communities of color and low-income residents.

Last year, the University of Texas at Austin released “Uprooted,” a report focusing on Austin’s most vulnerable residents, who either are at high risk of being displaced or have already been displaced as a result of gentrification.

One of the report’s several conclusions called for the city of Austin to adopt strategies to help slow the displacement of East Austin residents through a policy framework that could address and prioritize “the needs of various groups and neighborhoods.”

Although Dawson is new to Austin’s Black-owned business community, she understands the importance of the city of Austin investing in minority-owned businesses just like hers so they too can have a chance to thrive. “[East Austin] is still a viable community and Black people can get a hold [in] … the community and build,” Dawson said. “Even though things are more expensive and different, there are avenues for us.”

If one bite of Sassy’s takes you back to Grandma’s kitchen, then the love and passion Grandma had when sharing her secret spice mix or how to perfectly season collard greens is emulated through Dawson’s welcoming personality and warm smile. But this little food truck isn’t just about making a perfect piece of hot water cornbread or the best batch of fried cabbage.

Sassy’s is also a space of fellowship and community for Black residents in East Austin, who can connect over the food that has meant so much to our culture through times of grief and times of celebration.

“That makes me feel really good – that they can have a piece of home,” Dawson said.

Source: The Austin Chronicle

Sassy’s Vegetarian Soul Food

1819 E. 12th
sassys-vegetarian-soul-food.business.site
214/703-6617
Mon., closed; Tue.-Sun., 2-11pm

Couples, Inc. : Keewa and Doug own Kidswear Brand, Kido Chicago

March 16, 2019June 5, 2020

3 mins read

Kido Chicago is a Chicago based clothing line for babies and toddlers. The brand features a number of colorful, positive images and messages on onesies, t-shirts and more.

We spoke to husband and wife founders, Keewa Nurullah and Doug Freitag to find out how they balance business and family.

How did you both meet?

Keewa: A mutual friend invited me to a barbecue Doug was hosting at his house.

What inspired you to start Kido Chicago?

Keewa: When my son was about 7 months old, I simply got tired of all the trucks, dinosaurs, and lil’ slugger styles for boys.

I had a few ideas for some onesies, and Doug encouraged me to develop them and see about getting them printed.

I really wanted to see children of color reflected on apparel the way we’ve started to see change in children’s books.

What decision was made or action taken that was a “game changer” for your business?

Doug: Hosting events for families. It’s one thing to sell a product on the internet, but if you can connect your product to a lifestyle and create a community, that’s success.

Keewa: Getting our storefront. We’ve met so many new families just strolling into the shop that may have never found us in the vast online marketplace.

It lets us connect to our customers in a personal way, and it keeps them invested in our success.

Describe your individual personalities and how you fuse them to make the business work?

Doug: I’m a visual artist, so I focus on the design and creation of the garments. Keewa is very connected to the families and what they are into.

We have to listen to each other and prioritize one or the other, depending on the design.

What advice do you have for other couples who are in business together or thinking about it?

Doug: Give each other the space to make mistakes. Every person has a different process, so let your mate have room to succeed or fail in individual decisions before you insert your advice sometimes.

kido chicago