Freedom Center hosts minority, women-based community market

CINCINNATI (WXIX) -The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center hosted a small business community market on Sunday for attendees to shop at minority and women-owned businesses.

The event was free to the public as a part of the Fifth Third Community Days.

Attendees got to shop from about a dozen vendors on the museum’s second floor.

“We sell shirts that uplift women, empower women, and sometimes make women laugh,” Charlie Johnson Shearer, owner of Inspirational Bling Tees, said.

Shearer says her business motto is to allow one’s character to speak for itself.

She states the event is a great way to network, bounce off ideas with other business owners, and provide a sense of community.

Latoya Turner, a business owner and author, created a book to educate others about Historically Black Colleges and Universities and to get children excited about reading.

“I was a teacher for 13 years, and every year I would talk to my students about HBCUs, and over and over again, I would get that same question, ‘What’s an HBCU?’ So instead of complaining about it, I was like, ‘hmm, I should write a book about it,’ and now it’s a film,” Turner said.

Small business owners emphasized the importance of supporting and purchasing from them and spreading the word, as that is how their businesses grow and evolve.

“As mothers, as wives, as sisters, as educators, we play so many roles—this is just something that releases all the tension and gives us something to do, so support these women because we love what we do on top of everything else,” Shearer said.

Below is a list of vendors who participated in the event:

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