Annual gift and art show returns to steer holiday shoppers to Black entrepreneurs and artists

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An NAACP flyer campaigning for the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill, which passed the U.S. House of Representatives in 1922, but was filibustered to defeat in the Senate. Dyer, the NAACP, and freedom fighters around the country, like Flossie Baily, struggled for years to get the Dyer and other anti-lynching bills passed, to no avail. Today there is still no U.S. law specifically against lynching. In 2005, eighty of the 100 U.S. Senators voted for a resolution to apologize to victims' families and the country for their failure to outlaw lynching. Courtesy of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

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Claude, age 23, just months before his 1930 murder. Courtesy of Faith Deeter.

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Souvenir Portrait of the Lynching of Abram Smith and Thomas Shipp, August 7, 1930, by studio photographer Lawrence Beitler. Courtesy of the Indiana Hisorical Society.

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November 25, 2022

by Megan Sayles, AFRO

Juanita “Busy Bee” Britton is the CEO of BZB International, Inc., a public relations, event planning and travel firm. This year, she’s celebrating the return and 30th anniversary of her BZB Holiday Gift and Art Show.

After a two-year absence, the BZB Holiday Gift and Art Show will return to Washington, D.C. at Shiloh Baptist Church’s Family Life Center this month. Tagged the “largest African-American department store on the East Coast,” the 100,000 square-foot market covers two floors and features more than 80 Black entrepreneurs and artisans.

This year, the BZB Holiday Gift and Art Show is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and it will open its doors on Black Friday and remain open to the public every Saturday until Christmas Eve. It will also be open Friday, Dec. 23.

“Together, the artists, entrepreneurs and myself are ready and we’re back,” said Juanita Britton, CEO of BZB International, Inc. and founder of the event. “We don’t plan on stopping, and we have all that you need.”

Britton, nicknamed “Busy Bee” at the age of three by her grandmother, formed BZB in 1983 as a special event, marketing and African diaspora travel firm.

The BZB Holiday Gift and Art Show was spawned a few years later after her visit to Brixton Market, a bustling multi-cultural showcase for Caribbean and Africa artisans in South Central London.

Learn more about this event.

Keep your eye out for Black community happenings in our new events calendar!

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