‘We’re trying to bring light into this neighborhood’
The inspiration for the Melanin Market on Jacksonville’s Eastside, which on Saturday begins its sixth year promoting Black businesses, was a similar event that virtually ignored such businesses.
In December 2016 an organization planned a street fair on A. Philip Randolph Boulevard, the major thoroughfare of the neighborhood, and sought advice from Dawn Curling, a third-generation Eastside entrepreneur, and other leaders. But the organization, which Curling declined to name, ultimately had the event in an area dominated by parking, not Black businesses.
It did not go over well in the community.
“We were very upset. We felt bamboozled,” she said.
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So Curling, whose late grandfather was Edward “Cockey” Williams owned several businesses on the A. Philip Randolph Boulevard corridor, gathered 15 to 20 neighborhood business owners to have their “own little sidewalk market,” she said.
That successful venture led to the first Melanin Market — Melanin is a dark-brown to black pigment responsible for skin coloration — in February 2017. The market was on a stretch of A. Philip Randolph Boulevard that is filled with businesses and had about 100 vendors and 800 participants.
Now planned quarterly, the market not only promotes Black businesses but the Eastside itself and has helped prompt new attention to the area. Among the initiatives are an alliance of nonprofits, including Historic Eastside CDC and LIFT JAX, working to end poverty and revitalize the neighborhood.
Pride is building in the neighborhood, despite its long “bad reputation,” and at the market, which at first had little name recognition but is now a popular attraction, Curling said.
“I feel privileged to be here,” she said. “I really feel the market is making people come out … We’re trying to bring light into this neighborhood.”
Market a ‘springboard’ for Black-owned businesses
Saturday at least 165 predominantly Black-owned business owners will set up booths at the market from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The event also will showcase arts and culture and healthy food options, and connect residents to resources and services.
Among the vendors will be local teacher and children’s book author PeTika Tave, who first set up a booth at the market in September 2021. Her experience was personally and professionally “phenomenal,” she said.
“I am a testament to the fact that what the Melanin Market does is much needed and appreciated,” she said. “When I first attended, I heard children and even an adult say to the effect, wow, she’s the author and she’s a Black woman. What an impact that had on me.”
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The response to her books, which feature children and families of color, also was “positive … from all demographics,” she said. That response gave her the courage to apply at other similar events, such as the Riverside Arts Market, which prompted her business to grow “beyond anything I could have imagined.”
“The market not only opened eyes in the community, but it opens doors for vendors like me to take risks and get into spaces that I may not have considered,” she said.
Brett Knox and Yolanda Thornton and their company, Inspired Puzzles and Gifts of Jacksonville, have been at three markets and will return Saturday.
“It has been a bit of a learning experience to find vending events that attract our ideal customers in Jacksonville, but in the three Melanin Markets … it has been a success with more customers every time,” Thornton said. “I appreciate this opportunity as a seller and as a member of the community. It is great to see entrepreneurship on all levels and I feel like we have grown from it and look forward to it every time.”
Also returning will be Shanita Marie and her business persona, Mama Goddess Crystals.
“I hold Melanin Market in such high regard,” she said. “I respect any Black organization that seeks to highlight Black entrepreneurs.”
The Juneteenth market was her first as a handcrafted jewelry vendor and she was a “ball of nerves,” she said. But a heavy turnout led to high profits.
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“I was shocked and humbled,” she said. “The Melanin Market was the springboard I needed to pursue my entrepreneurship. Had it not been for them and my will to succeed, I may not have had the motivation to continue on in my entrepreneurship journey … the courage to vend at other local vendor events.”
She encouraged other business owners to do the same.
“Release your fears, inhibitions and worries about what may go wrong. And put your focus on what can go right!” she said. “Find yourself around like-minded people who are going to help push you into your destiny. … That idea wasn’t given to you for nothing.”
Parade honors trailblazers
To commemorate Black History Month, Saturday’s event will feature a noon parade honoring Black community leaders, including the 1958 Matthew Gilbert High School championship football team, the first Black team to win the state title; Harold Craw, Jumbo Shrimp general manager, the only currently serving and longest-tenured African American general manager in Jacksonville’s minor league baseball franchise; and George Smith, the first Black firefighter in Jacksonville after consolidation, according to organizers.
Suzanne Pickett, president of Historic Eastside CDC and vice chairwoman of the LIFT JAX executive board, said, “There’s no better way to learn about and celebrate the historical significance this community has had on Jacksonville than by coming together. We’re proud to be one of the many advocates who are very committed to the city.”
Other honorees are civil rights activists Rodney Hurst and Charles Cobb. The market and its supporters are a catalyst for positive change, Hurst said.
“The Eastside has been one of the communities where in all of its early history has been neglected, as far back as the late 1950s,” he said, citing among other things a past tax-increase campaign that promised a new Black high school that never materialized.
But Curling, Nixon and others are “refusing to allow the Eastside to be a tool. They are not allowing it to be just another tattered community,” Hurst said.
They have “meager resources” — the city, for example, has not stepped up as a partner — but still have become a “catalytic agent to get things done,” he said. “They have persevered.”
bcravey@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4100
MELANIN MARKET
The Black History Month event will be 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday at 822 A. Philip Randolph Blvd. between Phelps and East Union streets. In addition to business vendors, there will be live music, DJ, kids zone and food trucks. The noon parade will start at TIAA Bank Field Lot J and end at the market. For more information, call (904) 701-7555, email info@jaxmelaninmarket.com or go to jaxmelaninmarket.com.
