Black Businesses Band Together to Start Market in North Carolina

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[Black Business Market]
The Chronicle: “Karen Bonner, Ellen Forbes, Michelle Young and other business owners banded together to start a market for customers to buy from local Black business owners.”
Photo: YouTube

Over the past few months, there has been a big push for Black people to patronize more Black-owned businesses.

The movement has grown nationally through social media and word of mouth. Not to be left out, a group of business owners from Winston-Salem decided to jump on the bandwagon and organize their own Black Business Market in East Winston.

Karen Bonner, Ellen Forbes, Michelle Young and other business owners banded together to start a market for customers to buy from local Black business owners. The market is located in the field at 2419 NE Clairemont Ave. and is open from 9 a.m. through 2 p.m. each Saturday.

The group has not settled on a set schedule as of yet, but hopes to nail down a monthly schedule that works for their vendors. They have vendors that sell items such as food, clothing, jewelry, fresh produce, oils and soaps. They also have a booth set up for individuals to register to vote.

“I am in a group called Business Sisters Building and when all this happened with our brother getting shot and economics were down because of the pandemic, I made a suggestion in the group that we should do something about this,” Forbes said about how the idea for the market was started. “The rapper T.I. said he wanted to do a blackout of July 7 and I said ‘That is six weeks away, we need to do something now,’ so the group decided to put together a Black Business Market.

“We started out on Brownsboro Road at my flower shop, but it became too big. The first week we had maybe 25 vendors, the second week we had 36, and last week we had 47. We definitely are going to have to move again, which is great and amazing.”

Forbes and Young said the market has grown by leaps and bounds since the beginning and would like to have a large indoor space to work out of so they can hold the market if there is inclement weather.

Read the rest of the story: https://wschronicle.com/2020/07/black-business-market-in-east-winston-continues-to-grow/

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