Black Wall Street Festival Brings Out The Artrepreneurs

The music poured onto Temple Street all the way from the plaza in the middle of the block, directing and enticing a steady stream of pedestrians and shoppers to the long rows of canopies set up for the Black Wall Street Festival, an afternoon-long event designed to showcase a wide range of Black entrepreneurs.

Thanks to the robust turnout, a live band, and a pervasive sense of cheer, the festival was true to its name, turning Temple Street Plaza into something like bazaar meets block party. 

Organized by the city Department of Arts, Culture, and Tourism in partnership with The Breed Entertainment, a New Haven-based music production and entertainment company, the Black Wall Street Festival featured ​“25 Black-owned businesses spanning the arts, books, clothing and retail, consulting, cosmetics and skincare, food and drinks, jewelry, wellness products and more,” according to the official announcement of the event. It was ​“part of the City’s broader effort to advance inclusive economic growth and to provide equitable arts programming and opportunities for all, as outlined in New Haven’s first-ever Cultural Equity Plan.”

The band, headed up by Ricky Alan Draughn, strutted its way through a series of funk, R&B, and soul classics, drawing an audience who basked in the music and the heat, and answered Draughn’s calls to sing and dance when the song demanded. But the music was also there to set the tone. It created an atmosphere in which shoppers might explore what the vendors had to offer, linger and chat, and catch up with friends. As often as not, conversations began between people who seemed not to have seen one another for a while. The event brought them together. 

Several vendors sold clothes they had designed. Others had soaps and original artwork. A few were authors who had their books for sale. On the opposite end of the row from the band, the Kettle King and Many Donuts had set up shop to provide snacks. Those looking for a full meal needed only walk a few steps to the restaurants on Temple Street offering lunch and outdoor seating; in a way those restaurants became part of the festival as well.

Amid the rows of vendors was Jackie Buster, there in her role as the principal and director of Wow! Creative Design Group. Wow! is a creative branding agency that has worked with clients as various as Music Haven, the Halal Guys, and the Cornell Scott-Hill Health Center.

On Saturday, Buster set up shop for the New Haven merchandise that she sold at the Info New Haven store, which she used to run before Covid.

“We were stocking the store,” she said, and when Covid closed the store, ​“it took on a life of its own. It just kept going.”

Wow! never fully transitioned to being online because during the pandemic, ​“people just weren’t buying. It was the last thing on people’s minds. It did pick up, however, when things started to normalize.”

Wow! has been designing New Haven-centric products since 2016.

“The first line that we did was for Mayor [Toni] Harp,” selling through a pop-up shop at Woolsey Hall, Buster said. ​“It wasn’t originally all about clothes. It was about promotional products that we thought people would take home to remember New Haven by,” Buster said. Wow! designed New Haven-themed umbrellas and coffee mugs, pins with the city’s coordinates, postcards. ​“It was everything. But people wear T‑shirts and hats all the time, so they became our biggest sellers.”

Buster’s family has been in New Haven for 13 generations. ​“I’m really, really born and bred here.” Her uncle and father were the Buster Brothers — Eddie and Bobby — who are credited with being “​the heart and soul of jazz music in New Haven” during that music’s heyday on Dixwell Avenue. She designed a magnet featuring Rufus Greenlee, who owned the Monterey Club; Wow! has an entire line of New Haven jazz-themed products.

“People love buying this stuff and I enjoy selling it because I know whatever they’re buying, they’re buying because they really want it. They’re going to use it or wear it with pride.” These days, she said, ​“I think people are just happy to be out seeing each other, proud to represent. I think we’re just thankful to exist in an almost normal way.” And ​“we’re going to continue to create — keep on making this stuff.”

Not far away was A Hustlers Vibe, selling luxury streetwear from hats to T‑shirts to sweatpants for women, men, and children. They’ve been making clothes since 2015 but started in earnest in 2019.

“This is what we do, and what we’ve always done. We’ve always been into clothes,” said Ricardo Steele, who was manning the booth with Rashaan Boyd. (A third partner, Markese Clark, wasn’t at the booth that day.) It helps that A Hustlers Vibe is a group of friends who have known each other since elementary school, growing up together in the Dwight neighborhood. ​“It just makes it a lot more fun to do it with people you’re close with,” Steele said.

The friends found each other through sports, which ​“kind of brought us all together,” Steele said. ​“We all were playing Pop Warner football” as well as basketball. ​“We just became friends, and now we’re 26, so it’s been a lot of years.” He talked about just how many bonds have been forged through sports and after-school programs, or the Boys’ and Girls’ Club or the YMCA. ​“We all met there and we’ve been family ever since.”

A Hustlers Vibe, Steele said, is all about positivity, about working hard, making the best of the situation at hand, and relishing your progress; as their motto has it, they are ​“all hustle, no luck.”

“Right now we do drop-offs and pop-up shops and community events to spread the word about the brand until we get our own store. That’s the goal — to get our own store. We’re just going as far as we can, as fast as we can.” At the same time, the value of events like Black Wall Street was immediately clear to them. ​“It’s all about bringing it back to the community,” Stelle said.

Closer to Temple Street, Alana Ladson set out her art, in the form of prints, stickers, and other wares. Ladson took drawing seriously even as a child. ​“When I was a kid, I noticed a discrepancy” in how — and how often — Black people were portrayed in the media. ​“Where are my whimsical people of color? Where are my whimsical Black girls?” she recalled thinking. ​“Where are my butterflies, rainbows, and mermaids on Black folks? I wanted to see more of that and I really didn’t. So I decided when I was a little older that I would be the change. I would make what I wanted to see. That’s how I started getting into this.”

By the time Ladson was a teenager, she knew ​“it was going to be about art for me, but I didn’t know where I was going to take it.” Acquaintances were interested in having pieces of her art, so she started out on Etsy and in time got her own website. ​“Now I like to vend in person, so that’s mostly where I do business.”

Ladson works as communications manager and college career pathways manager for Music Haven, and ​“I love doing that. I do art, and I do that, so it’s going well.”

Ladson had for sale a mix of older and newer pieces. Prints that featured butterflies are among her older images, ​“but they’re really popular, so I keep circulating that.” The stickers and pins were of newer designs. In looking over her pieces she can track her growth as an artist and as an entrepreneur.

“I started off a little bit nervous,” she said. ​“You have to really advertise yourself, especially on Etsy.” Connecting with people who were interested in what she was making boosted her confidence. But ​“for the most part, I knew it was something I was going to do. I knew it was going to happen. It was just a question of when and how.” 

And ​“as an artist, I’m still into softness, beauty, nature — those are themes that are going to persevere throughout my art forever. She has noticed ​“more of a feminism edge” to some of her latest pieces; some of the subjects are perhaps a little ​“punchier.” ​“So things have been changing, but it has also been the same,” she said. ​“Nature, beauty, whimsy — it’s all going to happen, no matter what.”