The Black Mall

My experience as a vendor at The Black Mall has always been amazing. Chin-Yer has a way of creating and curating a vibe of love, community, family, and commerce with each and every event that she puts together that just feels right. It looks like family, tastes like soul food, it feels like home. The authenticity of her desire to see our people make money together, not in competition with each other, but in community with one another is something you rarely see. Most of the time when I vend, my children are with me. They've sold their artwork right alongside my own and been inspired by all the other black business owners that attend. They get a chance to have conversations with them and learn about how they started their businesses and those exchanges inform decisions that they will make going forward about how they want to become their own entrepreneur in the future. I also appreciate the fact that she bends over backwards to celebrate the individuals that make up our creative community here in Baltimore. Whether it be through her random Facebook statuses where she uses her beautiful command of language to write tributes to our community artists and change agents that rarely gets acknowledged, or the fact that she created a whole award show dedicated towards celebrating Black excellence that exists here is a constant source of inspiration and admiration for myself and that that respect her. She's tilling the soil. I admire her as a colleague but at this point I'm just honored to call her my friend. She's a true flower in a field of thorns. One of Black Baltimore's most precious gems that must be protected at all costs. We need a million more Chin-Yers. -Aaron Maybin