MONA MAHADEVAN photos
Alisha Crutchfield (right) and her 8-year-old daughter, Sienna McLead, will definitely be attending the festival this Saturday!
Diane Brown: “I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude, by Black people for Black people, especially on the New Haven Green.”
More than 250 Black-owned businesses, musicians, drill teams, and dancers will head to the Green this Saturday for the city’s fourth annual Black Wall Street Festival.
A dozen city officials and Black business owners previewed the festival, which takes place during National Black Business Month, at a press conference on the Green Monday morning.
“I’ve never seen anything of this magnitude, by Black people for Black people, especially on the New Haven Green,” said Diane Brown, a nationally recognized librarian and 67-year-old New Haven native.
The Black Wall Street Festival is designed to support Black-owned businesses, celebrate New Haven’s Black community’s contributions to the city, and inspire activism for racial and economic justice. It will take place on Saturday, Aug. 16, from noon to 8 p.m. on the Green, one week after the Puerto Rican fest brought hundreds to the Green.
The primary organizers are The Breed Entertainment, a New Haven based music production company co-founded by Aaron “Y.A.” Rogers and Rashad “Snacks” Johnson, and the New Haven Department of Arts, Culture, & Tourism.
Rogers and Johnson, both born and raised in New Haven, chose their hometown as the festival’s venue.
“We know how hard it is for Black businesses to be seen,” said Rogers on Monday, adding that the event’s consistency has increased attendance, from just 35 businesses in its first iteration in 2022 to over 250 expected this year.
Mayor Justin Elicker noted in his remarks that over 10,000 people participated in last year’s festival, and even more are estimated to attend this year.
In the days before the festival, the organizers have scheduled an economic summit for Thursday, Aug. 14, in partnership with the nonprofit Communities for Generations, and an R&B pre-party on Friday, Aug. 15.
The festival’s name is a reference to Greenwood, a Black neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that flourished as a center of Black economic and cultural life in the early 20th century. In 1921, a white mob decimated all 35 blocks, killing somewhere between 36 to 300 people and leaving another 10,000 homeless.
On Monday, Alisha Crutchfield, owner of Westville’s BLOOM and member of the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission, urged attendees to patronize Black-owned businesses and recognize the courage it takes to start them.
“A lack of support leads to a lack of courage,” explained Crutchfield, noting that while “money is vital” to small businesses, it’s “community support” that sustains them in tough times.
Crutchfield credited New Haven for fueling her courage to open her business, specifically naming Black community leaders like Karen DuBois-Walton, the president of the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven, and Erik Clemons, the founder and CEO of the Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT). Compared to her hometown of New York City, she found New Haven an easier place to start a business, thanks to its wealth of resources for small business owners and the ability to more easily build relationships with its business leaders.
“We can go faster alone, but we can go farther together,” said Communities for Generations executive board member Hafeeza Ture. “Friendship, community, partnership, and collaboration — that’s what we’re all about.”
Aaron “Y.A.” Rogers and Rashad “Snacks” Johnson preview the event: "We want to utilize our power, and our people's power, to bring people together."