Black Power Marketplace 8th event

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — Community Justice Initiative held the eighth Black Power Marketplace on Sunday to support Black-Owned businesses!

This event is where Black-Owned businesses can get together to promote their business and sell their products. It is hosted by Community Justice Initiative who’s goal is to empower Black life. It’s all about supporting and shopping within the Black community’s businesses.

Diallo Payne of the Community Justice Initiative said “In the Black community, the dollar for the folks-when folks take home their money, it stays in the community for about six hours. So part of the goal of this event is for us to spend money in our own community so a lot of our businesses, they grow and they get stronger. And then once the businesses get stronger, then family and community get stronger.”

“It’s grown so much the first time we did it, we had a few vendors. Now it’s getting to the point where we’re like now we got vendors in the hallway, vendors in here. The next one will probably be even bigger. It’s beautiful just seeing all of the Black-Owned small businesses in Rochester just come out and show everyone in the city what they do and how they do it”, said Dee Richardson of the Community Justice Initiative.

Attendee Heaven Vega said  “Basically, this event is just to bring the community together. Obviously, Rochester can be very negative so we try to host these events to uplift the community and bring out that sense of community that we’ve been lacking. Just like when we do Feed the Village, it’s for the village, it’s for the people.”