Prosperity Market: Creating a sense of urgency to give Black farmers a platform

Market correspondent Gillian Ferguson reports from City Terrace, where she meets the women behind Prosperity Market. Makeup artist Carmen Dianne and fashion designer Kara Still observed the social unrest during the pandemic and subsequent support of Black businesses. They then created a roving farmer’s market featuring Black farmers, food producers, and chefs. With monthly three-day pop-ups, they are fundraising for a 48-foot trailer set up like a produce aisle of a grocery store, with a kitchen for chefs to rotate through and prepare food. In the process of researching the project, the woman discovered only 1.3% of farmers in America are Black, and two-thirds of Black businesses are in the hardest hit areas of the pandemic, forcing 41% of them to close.