Broadway Market to mark Black History Month with special Saturday events

More than two dozen Black-owned retailers will set up booths at the historic market from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every Saturday this month inside the market at 999 Broadway.

Shoppers will receive a $25 gift certificate when they make a $10 purchase on Saturdays with participating vendors at the market. The certificates will be good through Feb. 24, the final Saturday of the month. For a list of vendors, visit broadwaymarket.org.

“As we celebrate Black History Month, let us honor the legacy of resilience and entrepreneurship within our community by supporting black-owned businesses at The Broadway Market,” Mayor Byron W. Brown said in announcing the event. “Their success is our success, and by uplifting these businesses, we enrich the entire fabric of our city.”

Shoppers and visitors also will be treated to other festive activities on Saturdays, including live music featuring some of the region’s best African American musicians and vocalists. They include:

• Unity Band – Saturday

• Buffalo’s Own Foxy Brown and the Blues Boys – Feb. 10

• The Carol McLauglin Quartet – Feb. 17

• Larry Salter’s Soul Orchestra – Feb. 24

Black History Month began as Negro History Week in the 1920s.

Carter G. Woodson, the son of freed Virginia slaves, came up with the idea to encourage Black Americans to become more interested in their own history and heritage.

Woodson earned a Ph.D in history from Harvard University and was founder of the Association for the Study of African American History. He worried that Black children were not being taught in American schools during the early 1900s about the achievements of their ancestors.

Woodson chose February for Negro History Week because it had the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. Lincoln was born on Feb. 12, and Douglass, a former slave who did not know his exact birthday, celebrated his on Feb. 14.

The first Negro History Week was announced in February 1926.

Later, the Civil Rights and Black Power movements advocated for an official shift from a weeklong celebration to Black History Month, launched in 1976.