By Linda Stamato
As Black History Month takes center stage in Morris County, Empower The Village Inc., a Morristown-based nonprofit organization, is celebrating by launching what it expects to be an annual event, the Black Empowerment Expo.
Empower the Village founder and CEO Ayo Sanderson Wilson and Executive Director Cheryl R. Easley are using their savvy and talent and drawing from the power of the organization to do just that: Empower the Village!
The Black Empowerment Expo will take place on Feb. 11, 2023, from 10 am – 6 pm, and is being held a stone’s throw away, on the campus of Bloomfield College in Bloomfield.
Admission for the general public is $30. Student admission is only $10. Tickets are available at the Empower The Village website.
The Expo will emphasize the role that business ownership has played historically to empower and add to the vibrancy and prosperity of the Black Village. The centerpiece of the event is the Empowerment Expo, where some 40 Black business owners and entrepreneurs will highlight their services for the 200+ people expected to attend.
Video: Empower the Village mission:
There will be a vendor marketplace, the “Sip, Sample and Shop,” where Black-owned businesses will showcase a wide range of products and services. Attendees will be treated to music, food and drinks, and vendors offering health and beauty products, services, books, clothing, jewelry, accessories, and art.
The daylong program features business executive and community advocate Jackie Taylor, “The Business Doctor,” according to Easley, as well as a panel of academics, entrepreneurs, and business executives, who will discuss the rich African and African-American history and the challenges and opportunities of Black entrepreneurship.
A festival highlight is the Village Ventures competition, a business pitch competition where five finalists will vie for $10,000 in awards to re-invest in their respective businesses.
Empower the Village has been dreaming of gathering “The Village” together for an event that, in Easley’s words, “is culturally-affirming, impactful and focused on the future.”
The dream took shape in the mind and heart of Sanderson Wilson when she departed the corporate world to found the organization in 2018.
“It is extremely gratifying to see the vision of a community-building Black History Month program come to fruition,” she said.
“February needs to be more than a time to revisit history – instead, it is a time to reflect on and remember the lessons of history to help us fuel a prosperous future for the generations to come. Educating, empowering, embracing and inspiring the Black community with the help of ‘the Village’ is what ETV is all about.”
The Empowerment Expo is the newest among the portfolio of economic prosperity-enhancing programs and initiatives that ETV has created to assist and empower Black businesses and families, and to provide a roadmap to building generational wealth.
Another is “Make Every Friday, Black Friday,” a movement launched in 2020 to encourage the “Village” to support Black-owned businesses at least once a week. In conjunction with the special weekday, ETV created the Village Black Pages directories, a resource and compendium of 25 directories, comprising over 30,000 free Black-owned business listings, in the 24 states and Washington, DC where over 90 percent of the U.S. Black population reside and work.
ETV’s Expo doesn’t stand alone, however. The African American Chamber of Commerce has a statewide Expo planned for June 2023, in Montclair. With the theme “A Legacy of Excellence,” the chamber’s emphasis on the community-, public- and private sectors complements the gathering in Bloomfield, focusing as it does on “the economic and cultural empowerment of underperforming communities.”
The entrepreneurial Black Village is getting larger by the day, enriching the community, building its capacity, and extending benefits far beyond its intentional reach. All citizens are its beneficiaries and Black History Month is precisely the time to recognize that reality and to celebrate it.
Linda Stamato is the Co-Director of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Brunswick. She is a Faculty Fellow there as well. Active in the Morristown community, she serves on the trustee board of the Morristown and Morris Township Library Foundation and is a commissioner on the Morristown Parking Authority.
Opinions expressed in commentaries are the authors’, and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication.
