Every year, back when she worked for the National Education Association, Sheila Simmons would talk to board members who traveled from across the country to Washington for a November meeting.
“This local marketplace not only builds up our community in terms of what it makes available for us by us, but it has also been an opportunity to create local jobs,” Simmons said. It helps narrow the wealth gap, she said. “The other thing that I think is so important about this is you get an opportunity to build fellowship. You get a chance to re-engage with people you’ve known over the years, and it’s around food, it’s around fashion, it’s around culture.
Britton, whose company BZB International operates more than a dozen businesses in D.C.-area airports, said the idea for the market came to her after visiting Brixton Market in London. There, she saw a “beautiful, eclectic community of Caribbean people” selling their handmade items and started thinking about how she could replicate that model in Washington.
“I’d like for it to bring people together,” she said. “I’m always wishing to get a wider mix of shoppers.”Aaron Johnson said he would like to see a line down the street of people waiting to get in., a handmade fashion collection, and they have long been a presence at the market. “It’s a very unique space, in that you have handmade fashion and creations from African American artists and designers from all over the country. Having a space like that doesn’t exist anywhere else.
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