Black-Owned Brooklyn (2026)

06/01/2026

In January 1989, hip hop issued a call to action with the release of “Self Destruction.” The charity single came from the Stop the Violence Movement, a collective of rappers organized by to address violence in the community.

This clip from the music video, shot in Harlem, highlights Brooklyn voices: and Ms. Melodie, both from Flatbush, along with members of the Brooklyn-based group Stetasonic (Daddy-O and Wise). Also featured here is Harlem’s , who produced the record.

At the time, hip hop was under intense scrutiny as violence at concerts made national headlines. A 1988 Run-D.M.C. show in Long Beach was shut down after more than 40 people were injured in gang-related fighting. Weeks later, a Long Island concert featuring Eric B. & , , Kool Moe Dee and Biz Markie ended in a fatal stabbing.

In response, KRS-One assembled the Stop the Violence Movement, a rap supergroup bringing together Boogie Down Productions (KRS-One and D-Nice), Heavy D, Public Enemy ( and ), MC Lyte, Kool Moe Dee, Doug E. Fresh, Ms. Melodie, Stetasonic (MC Delite, Daddy-O, Wise and Frukwan) and Just-Ice for one iconic song.

All proceeds from “Self Destruction” were donated to the National Urban League. The single raised over $100,000 to support anti-violence work in Black communities, showing that hip hop could mobilize for something bigger than the charts.

27/12/2025

Since the late 1960s, Brooklyn has been among the earliest communities to embrace Kwanzaa. Specifically The East, a Pan-African education and cultural organization in Bed-Stuy, were among the first to actively practice the holiday, helping root its principles of unity, self-determination, and collective work and responsibility across the borough and beyond.

Umoja, the first principle of Kwanzaa, calls us to unity: showing up for one another, building and protecting shared institutions, and understanding that our future depends on how well we hold each other.

Wishing our community a meaningful and joyful Kwanzaa. ❤️🖤💚

Photo from the collections of

23/12/2025

Though it started as a father’s gift to his child, “Santa Claus is a Black Man” became a tradition loved by generations. Meet Akim and Teddy Vann, the Brooklynites behind one of our favorite Christmas classics.

11/12/2025

Photo courtesy of Queen Afua

“It was the late ’80s in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. I was living on Washington Avenue, and the soundtrack of the streets was pure soul — Luther Vandross crooning through every radio, Anita Baker floating through the windows of brownstones. Brooklyn was alive, radiant, and unapologetically Black.

And yes, there were epidemics creeping into our neighborhoods, shadows that touched nearly every block. But even in the midst of that, Blackness pulsed with brilliance. The African Arts Festival (what we all called the African Street Festival back then) stretched like a heartbeat down Fulton Street, filling the air with drums, incense, vendors and the laughter of children.

The Black Cultural Wellness and Vegetarian community was booming — a movement before it had a name. Juices were fresh-pressed, knowledge was passed hand to hand, and healing was rooted in food, spirit and rhythm. There was pride in the way we carried ourselves, pride in the way Brooklyn carried us.

And I had my Women’s Wellness Sister Circles — Sister to Sister, where healing was my jam. I danced into it like a calling, a rhythm already written in my bones.”
—Queen Afua

05/12/2025

On June 20, 1990, a few months after his release from 27 years in prison, Nelson Mandela visited Bed-Stuy’s Boys and Girls High School. Brooklyn welcomed him like family finally coming home.

Mandela’s Brooklyn stop (Day 1 of an eight-city U.S. tour that also included Atlanta, Detroit and Oakland) was a deliberate choice. He came to honor one of the many Black communities that had organized, fundraised and protested for his freedom.

“You sustained us,” he said to the crowd of thousands, urging them to continue the boycott and divestment efforts against South Africa’s apartheid government. “Your solidarity kept hope alive.”

Mandela’s motorcade also passed through Fort Greene and East New York, where people packed the sidewalks for blocks, greeting him with cheers and raised fists. The following day, he traveled to Harlem, where an estimated 100,000 people filled 125th Street.

Archival footage courtesy of Tribune Broadcasting/Getty Images

03/12/2025

Every icon has an origin story. Here’s pre-fame Erykah Badu, 24, at her first open mic in 1995. Two years before Baduizm dropped and “On & On” became a #1 hit. In her own words:

“This 1995 when I first landed, head wrapped, in Black Fort Greene, Brooklyn. My first open mic. Didn’t know nobody. Had just been signed to KEDAR / Universal. Didn’t tell nobody til my album dropped two years later. Vegetarian recluse. Was working on myself heavy. Focused.”

18/11/2025

There have been a lot of questions, and a beautiful outpouring of support, since our last post about the present and future of 375 Stuyvesant Ave.

This Saturday, 11/22, from 3–7 pm, — the nonprofit working to keep it community-owned through their BLAC Land Trust initiative — is hosting a Day of Action at the mansion. The gathering will close with a town hall to share updates on the road ahead, answer your questions, hear your ideas, and talk about how we can collectively steward and own this space.

You might know Growhouse from their successful fight to keep the Flatbush African Burial Ground out of developers’ hands — proof of what community power can do.

Learn more about this effort by following . And if you care about saving the Stuyvesant Mansion, join them on Saturday to get informed and organized. Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfnoI43AscZCkqjlpjGtM-XheOGDq1GmR-afMUCWAh7KDkYng/viewform

14/11/2025

So much of our history has already been lost. We can’t let the Stuyvesant Mansion be next: https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-sale-of-375-stuyvesant-ave
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The mansion at 375 Stuyvesant Avenue, once home to trailblazing OB-GYN Dr. Josephine English, is facing a tax lien sale. This puts the historic landmark and community space at risk of commercial takeover.

The Bed-Stuy property is owned by the family of Josephine English, the first Black woman to open a private practice in New York. Dr. English founded women’s health clinics in Brooklyn in the 1950s and 1970s, later expanding her work to include a senior center, daycare and afterschool program.

Shortly before she died in 2011, Dr. English left the mansion to her children, with the stipulation that some of it be used for community purposes. Today it houses a thriving community of organizers, activists and artists.

Although the courts have ordered the mansion’s immediate sale, a new petition calls for 375 Stuyvesant Avenue to be transferred to the BLAC Land Trust — a community land trust that works to reclaim and preserve Black-owned land and cultural spaces in Brooklyn.

The land trust would keep this historic property in community hands, ensuring collective governance and protection from speculation and displacement. Sign the petition at bit.ly/375stuyvesant

29/10/2025

It’s been 30 years since “Vampire in Brooklyn” hit theaters on October 27, 1995.

Directed by genre legend Wes Craven and starring Eddie Murphy as a Caribbean vampire named Maximillian, the film was initially panned by critics for its mix of horror and comedy. But that unique blend is what ultimately made it a cult classic.

In the movie, produced and co-written by Bushwick native Eddie Murphy and his brother Charlie, Maximillian arrives in Brooklyn from an island within the Bermuda Triangle. He’s searching for his last descendant, hoping to preserve their bloodline — when he finds Rita, a half-human, half vampire police detective (Angela Bassett) unaware of her lineage. Shot primarily in Brooklyn, locations included Prospect Park, Brooklyn Heights and the Brooklyn Bridge.

The cast also features Allen Payne as Rita’s detective partner Justice, along with Kadeem Hardison and John Witherspoon, making it one of the few horror films of its time led by Black actors. In his signature style, Murphy plays multiple characters, including Preacher Pauly and Guido the mobster.

“Vampire in Brooklyn” was ahead of its time in its reimagining of vampire lore through a Black diasporic lens, bringing representation to a genre that rarely made space for us. Three decades later, it rightfully remains a cult hit.

17/10/2025

Few places captured the look, feel and spirit of 2000s Brooklyn like Harriet’s Alter Ego.

Co-founded around 2000 by designer Hekima Hapa and business strategist Ngozi Odita, the clothing line imagined what Harriet Tubman might be like in the modern era. Describing their aesthetic as “African superheroes,” they blended bold prints, upcycled materials and Afrofuturist silhouettes with a handmade, bohemian sensibility.

Harriet’s Alter Ego had two locations during its run, first in Park Slope before moving to 293 Flatbush Ave. in Prospect Heights. The boutique functioned as a fashion house, art gallery, performance venue and bustling community space, hosting art shows, concerts, monthly brunches, and “Backyard Couture” kickbacks in its own garden. Its striking designs drew fans like India.Arie, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Amel Larrieux, M.I.A., dead prez and Meshell Ndegeocello.

To promote the brand, Hekima and Ngozi staged “renegade fashion shows” in unconventional spaces like parks, Afropunk (back when it was in the BAM parking lot) and block parties. Though Harriet’s closed its doors in 2009, going out with an unforgettable farewell party, the store’s legacy still reverberates.

The line continued, evolving in 2015 to , Hekima’s solo, eco-friendly version of the brand. Today her main focus is leading , a Bed-Stuy nonprofit, now in its 13th year, that teaches sewing, design and entrepreneurship to youth and adults. Ngozi is the founder of , a Lagos-based platform that supports and connects creators, entrepreneurs and technologists committed to Africa’s prosperity.

But for nearly a decade, they built a magical world inside Harriet’s Alter Ego, where art, community and self-determination collided. They popularized Ankara prints and deconstructed looks long before those styles were trendy, and helped shape a pivotal moment in Black Brooklyn’s creative renaissance.

Big thanks to Harriet’s Alter Ego and everyone who captured these moments:

2 -
4 - Blow Hip Hop TV
5, 14, 15, 16 - (2008)
19 - GMA3 (2022)
20 - (2022)ts

27/09/2025

“Assata Shakur is Welcome Here!”, Republic of New Afrika, Madame Binh Graphics Collective (MBGC), Brooklyn, NY, 1979

This iconic poster was designed and produced in Brooklyn by the Madame Binh Graphics Collective at a pivotal moment. A radical all-women’s art collective that served as the graphic arts and propaganda wing for the May 19th Communist Organization, MBGC routinely created artwork for other organizations and movements they supported.

The poster was commissioned by the Republic of New Afrika in response to Assata Shakur’s escape from a New Jersey prison on November 2, 1979, aided by fellow members of the Black Liberation Army. Three days later, on Black Solidarity Day in New York City, a demonstration of 5,000 people marched from Harlem to the United Nations building, with hundreds of marchers carrying the posters expressing solidarity with Assata.

A true revolutionary who dedicated her life to Black liberation, may she rest in absolute power.

1. “Assata is Welcome Here!” poster, Madame Binh Graphics Collective, 1979

2. Black Solidarity Day flyer, 1979

3. Black Solidarity Day Demonstration at the UN, 1979 (New Afrikan)

4. Assata Shakur in Havana, Cuba, 1998 (Adama Delphine Fawundu, Honey Magazine)

Black-Owned Brooklyn

06/01/2026

27/12/2025

23/12/2025

11/12/2025

05/12/2025

03/12/2025

18/11/2025

14/11/2025

29/10/2025

17/10/2025

27/09/2025

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