The Lawrence community can celebrate Juneteenth this year by shopping at a new market created to highlight local Black-owned businesses.
Sherell Yarbough, owner of Sherell’s Custom Treats, organized the Black Business Market to give local Black entrepreneurs an accessible platform to launch and grow their companies.
The market will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, June 14 in the Flory Building at the Douglas County Fairgrounds, 2120 Harper St.
The market will include diverse vendors, with 30 to 40 participants. They’ll be selling seafood bags, reading tarot cards, giving free blood pressure and glucose checks and more. Attendees can expect to see names like Brainfreeze Daiquiri, Kinnect Wellness, She Will Beauty and SoulfulScent.
“A lot of Black entrepreneurs are unseen or unheard,” Yarbough said. “This is an opportunity to get their name out there and get the confidence to move to the next level.”
Yarbough knows the power of popups. She always loved creating on-theme desserts for her five children’s birthday parties, but she didn’t register as a business until after testing the popularity of her treats at a local popup market. That’s why it was important for Yarbough to create one that was accessible.
The market doesn’t charge vendors to set up shop. When compared to fees at the annual Lawrence Juneteenth celebration, Yarbough said this policy eliminates a barrier for Black-owned businesses to get out into the community. It costs $100 for service organizations to table at Juneteenth, $175 for retail vendors, and $250 for food vendors.
“When you’re just trying to get your business noticed, the last thing you need is the stress of paying so much into something you don’t know you’re going to profit from,” Yarbough said. “It makes me so happy that these people are going to come out and make 100% profit from this.”
Janine Colter, Lawrence Kansas Juneteenth Organization president, said costs to put on the event increased, and the food vendor fee was one change in the budget planning this year — an increase of $75 from 2024 — because the organization provides food truck inspections, power, water and other resources as part of the package.
Colter said she understood vendors were comfortable with the rates and was surprised to see the Black Business Market planned.
“We never want anyone to be excluded,” Colter said. “And so I wish they would have just reached out to us and said, ‘Hey, we got a concern. We’re not able to afford this, you know, what can you do? And that’s something we could bring back to the board.”
The market and the Juneteenth celebration are unaffiliated, although they’re both the same day.
Working with and supporting Yarbough, Moniqué Mercurio, director of operations for Douglas County CORE, said the only doable day they could find for the market happened to fall when the Juneteenth celebration was scheduled.
“After talking to several community members it was decided that enough people wanted an additional space to celebrate Juneteenth as well as the opportunity to participate in an event that centered their voices and their businesses,” Mercurio said via email. “I don’t ever intend on asking marginalized business owners to obtain permission from anyone before cultivating something that fills a need that’s important to them.”
— Reporter Maya Hodison contributed to this article.
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Jordan Winter (she/her), a contributor to The Lawrence Times since August 2021, is a 2019 KU grad with degrees in journalism and political science.
Check out her work at jrdnwntr.com. See more of her work for the Times here.
Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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Maya Hodison/Lawrence Times
