New Haven is preparing to celebrate its third annual New Haven Black Wall Street Festival on Saturday. The festival will feature Black entrepreneurs and artists along with many family-friendly activities.
This year, in addition to the day-long festival, the city is introducing Black Wall Street Week, which runs through Sunday. It features Black art and cultural events across the city.
The festival began as a collaboration between the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Grammy-nominated producers and Breed Entertainment Co-Founders Aaron Rogers and Rashad Johnson to highlight Black businesses and culture.
The event, which is now in its third year, has quickly grown from about 1,000 people in attendance and about 35-Black owned businesses the first year in 2021 to 7,000 people in attendance the following year.
The festival continues to grow, said Adriane Jefferson, director of Arts, Culture and Tourism for the city of New Haven and an organizer and co-founder of the Black Wall Street Festival.
“We have over 200 Black businesses that's going to be on the green. It’ll be a mixture of a variety of different shopping experiences,” Jefferson said. “There’ll be entertainment all day and food trucks."
But that's not all.
"We have artists performing, cover bands, community events and we also have empowerment centers for voting registration and continued education,” Jefferson said.
Jefferson is also interested in making sure people know why they called the festival Black Wall Street. The name is a reference to the Black-owned prosperous business communities across the U.S. in the early 1900s, many of them destroyed in targeted racial violence.
They included a Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which was destroyed in 1921 after a white mob attacked and burned the Greenwood District. Scores of people — and perhaps hundreds — were killed.
“We can use the name all day, but if we're not recognizing the history and the origin of it, I think we're doing it a complete disservice,” Jefferson said.
The festival coincides with National Black Business Month and is part of the city of New Haven’s larger effort to support inclusive economic growth and equitable arts programming.
Learn more
The Black Wall Street Festival kicks off Saturday at noon and goes until 8 p.m. on the New Haven Green.
