With BLK MKT Vintage, two women have curated a celebration of black history and lined the four walls of an antique shop in Brooklyn with it. Thrifters, rejoice: Jannah Handy’s and Kiyanna Stewart’s lovingly compiled collection features a plethora of vintage “curiosities,” (to quote their website), historical artifacts, and pop culture memorabilia.
The present debate around the seemingly obvious call to do away with certain Civil War memorials centers around the argument that history must be preserved. Books like Gone with the Wind, statues of Robert E. Lee, and Confederate flags capture a period in time that represents pain and trauma for so many.
But what’s perhaps equally unsettling as the fact that there are people who wish to preserve white supremacy in the name of posterity, is the fact that so few museums, memorials, or marketplaces exist to showcase the opposite; the rich history of blackness and black culture in America. A culture that rarely receives representation at your average Sunday flea market or Melrose Avenue thrift store.
The couple opened BLK MKT Vintage in 2018, after crowdfunding enough capital to purchase a small storefront in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Bedstuy. They began their journey selling vintage collectibles in flea markets and on Etsy, but yearned for greater ownership, more exposure, and to cultivate a following of black buyers.
Both women were born and raised in Brooklyn, and they felt strongly about bringing their business back there, “There’s something special about being able to take up physical and tangible space in a community that is continuing to rapidly change,” Stewart told VICE Magazine, “White folks have told Black stories for as long as they’ve been telling stories. No one can tell my story the way I can.”
