BLK MKT Vintage is a Brooklyn, NY-based antique/vintage concept shop, specializing in collectibles, cast-off’s and curiosities, which represent the richness of Black history and lived experience. Curated by founders Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart.
For the last three years, Blk Mkt Vintage has released their annual Juneteenth tees in recognition for the now-federally recognized holiday.
This year the back of their Juneteenth 2022 Classic Tee centers the first-hand experience of formerly enslaved now-ancestor Felix Haywood of San Antonio, Texas who, in 1936 at 92 years old, recounted his time during enslavement and post-emancipation. In “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936 to 1938”, he tells interviewers about the moment he and his community learned of their freedom – the day we’ve come to know and recognize as Juneteenth. It’s in this spirit of centering the narratives of our ancestors and looking to primary resources that we were seeking to make ancestor Haywood’s vivid retelling more accessible.
“The end of the war, it come jus’ like that – like you snap your fingers… Hallelujah broke out… Soldiers, all of a sudden, was everywhere – comin’ in bunches, crossin’, walkin’ and ridin’. Everyone was a-singin.’ We was all walkin’ on golden clouds… Hallelujah! Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes and nobody had made us that way but ourselves. We was free. Just like that, we was free.” — Ancestor Felix Haywood, 1936. San Antonio Texas.
Blk Mkt Vintage’s Juneteenth tees are available for guarantee delivery by Juneteenth if ordered by June 6th.
