The crowds at the Uhuru Flea Market are relatively light on the last Saturday in September. With the weather beginning to turn, the usual stream of students and local residents who peruse cheap jewelry and used books in Clark Park each month is slowing to a trickle.
A few Penn students meander between mugs wishing the buyer a “Happy Baby Mama Day” and a stall offering homemade soaps in scents like mango and pumpkin. Between sales, a woman gossips with two regulars about another customer. An older woman dressed all in purple and carrying a hooked cane stops at Rashida Watson’s stall and indicates a thick black cord adorned with a blood red stone hanging from the stall’s roof. “Ooh, that’s fierce,” she says.
At Adrienne Slater’s booth, images of women with their eyes closed adorn a display of earrings. Miles the Pomeranian sleeps on his side while Slater addresses the occasional customer. Nobody buys anything.
“This is very low-key right now,” the New York native says. “Usually you can’t even walk.”
She attributes the sparseness to the economy, explaining that the past three markets have felt markedly lighter in both people and cash flow. The trick to surviving the recession is creativity, she says, like sales. “Out with the old so you can come in with the new.”
Watson, who has been selling her shawls and jewelry with an “ethnic flair” at the market for five years, agrees that the economy has made sales tough. Still, she tries to maintain a positive attitude. “You’ve just got to adjust to whatever’s moving.
“I like hanging out in the park, anyway,” she adds. She likes the “eclectic crowd” with “tastes that sort of run the gamut.”
But the economy isn’t the only threat to this monthly treasure trove of odds and ends. If those who are part of what flea market organizers have called a very vocal minority get their way, the flea market may become less frequent or even disappear entirely.
Between greeting customers, Brian Veasey explains the situation authoritatively. A few neighbors don’t like the market, he says. The community wants to disband it. Veasey promises, though, that if the vendors get kicked out, they will show up anyway. They will set up empty tables and wait for trouble to start.
Veasey doesn’t dwell on the subject for long, switching topics quickly to make small talk with customers he hopes will return.
***
According to Frank Chance, the president of the Friends of Clark Park — the organization charged with maintaining the park — it’s not quite clear exactly who has a problem with the flea market.
The Friends of Clark Park have been distributing an anonymous survey at the farmers market that occupies the northeast corner of the park twice a week. The survey asks questions about the size of the flea market, the best location for a flea market and how often the flea market should be held. The last question asks, “Are there things about flea markets in the park that trouble you?” Chance says the group has collected just over 100 responses so far.
The survey is not intended to pertain specifically to the Uhuru Flea Market but to “flea marketeering in general,” explains Tony West, head of the Friends of Clark Park’s Large Events Committee. Other groups have asked to hold flea markets in the park, and the Friends of Clark Park are trying to determine just how popular the flea market is with the neighbors. West hopes to have survey results sometime after Thanksgiving. He will then present the results to the Friends of Clark Park’s executive board in December and make a recommendation to the rest of the members in January.
But he clarifies that the Friends of Clark Park doesn’t have the power to say who can or cannot hold a flea market in the park. That power ultimately lies with the City of Philadelphia.
“So far the [survey] results are not surprising,” says Chance. “A lot of people like the flea market.” But, he qualifies, “there aren’t a lot of people asking for a lot more flea markets.”
Most of the concerns expressed through the surveys have related to damage to plant life and soil or traffic concerns — some respondents say that the vendors’ cars and vans occupy too much space on the streets. Uhuru has made efforts to fix these problems, Chance says, but it’s not enough.
On the other side, Ali Hoehne, chairwoman of Uhuru’s African People’s Solidarity Committee, says these complaints are baseless. The flea market participants — vendors and shoppers alike — always clean up after themselves because they love the park, she says.
While the complaints certainly cause disagreements, the survey itself has also been a source of tension.
“We really cannot support the survey... because you can’t verify it. There are no names attached to it,” says Hoehne. “The survey was designed to restrict the park.”
Tim Minor, who sells bath products at the market, agrees that the survey is unfair. He suggests the group survey residents about farmers markets, too. “In terms of the farmers market, they’re there all year round, twice a week. We’re there seven days out of the year.”
In response to the survey, the Uhuru Movement has been distributing a petition to keep the market running at its current frequency. So far, without any “intensive” distribution, the group has collected about 1,200 signatures, as well as about 62 letters from business owners who support the flea market, Hoehne announced at the Friends of Clark Park’s October meeting.
“It is a successful event,” she says. “It’s something the community wants.”
The flea market is a fundraiser for the Uhuru Movement, a global effort to achieve economic and social justice for people of African descent, and for the African Village Survival Initiative, which works to improve conditions in African communities in the United States and in Africa. Hoehne explains that the movement’s goal is to have “the African community solving their own problems” and “unity in our city based on real justice and economic development for all.
“It’s not just about us. It’s about helping to transform this community,” she adds, citing 76-percent poverty rates in West Philadelphia, as well as in other areas of the city. “It’s about a colonial relationship. … The African community is an oppressed community,” denied the rights to good health care, education and jobs, she says.
Uhuru is also a movement that, per its often-provocative opinions, naturally attracts controversy.
For instance, Hoehne says that those who oppose the movement want to “keep the status quo” and “keep the black community from having rights. It’s keeping the money and power where it is.”
But representatives of the Friends of Clark Park see things differently.
“Uhuru’s issues are not very politically popular,” says Chance. He has heard complaints about the flea market’s political mission. A lot of Uhuru rhetoric is anti-police, he adds. “There are politics involved here, as well as race and class and economy and environment, and if it was all very simple and clear-cut, we wouldn’t be having a discussion about it.”
Hoehne doesn’t think the flea market should be a casualty of people's reaction to the movement's politics. Not only have the flea markets faced opposition, she says the organization has also faced “political attacks.” Banners advertising the market get torn down overnight, vendors’ car registration plates are photographed, and vendors even get yelled at during the markets. But the vendors aren’t “hurting a tree.”
Although West won’t say what complaints he has received, he, too, has heard individuals speak out against the flea market, expressing wishes that it would no longer come to Clark Park. “If nobody complains about something, nobody investigates,” he says. “It would be like the research equivalent of Seinfeld” — pointless.
***
Between distributing fliers and collecting signatures on a petition, Uhuru Flea Market coordinator Opa Hamilton tries to explain the controversy without saying anything too controversial.
“They really won’t say why,” says Hamilton. “They just say they want us to have less.”
The same neighbors who hate the flea market adore the farmers market that occupies the park twice a week, she adds.
“All the money that we raise goes back in the black community,” Hamilton explains, emphasizing the important role the flea market plays.
Likewise, for volunteer coordinator Harris Daniels, the flea market is a crucial part of the community. The economic recession has caused more vendors to sell merchandise at the market, he explains, whether to supplement income that has shrunk drastically or to replace income that has disappeared entirely. “To even think about cutting that back is ridiculous.”
“It’s not fair,” exclaims Abraham Kaba, a vendor, in a barely discernible accent when asked about the possibility that the flea market could shut down. “We only come here one time a month. We don’t do anything.” Kaba has been selling his jewelry — most items less than $10 — at the market for seven years.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” says Penn senior Yuki Hashimoto, who has been to the flea market a number of times.
She discovered the flea market after volunteering at the farmer’s market last semester, and she kept returning for more. “It’s such a great community,” she says of the participants. Praising the “quality of the vendors” and the handmade products “that you can’t buy anywhere else,” she says. She even has helped the movement by circulating the petition to save the market.
“I don’t feel like it’s necessary to shut it down.”
***
A customer holds up a necklace with a blue stone. This was only $5, he says to Veasey, expecting him to lower prices on his $8 crosses and other spiritually themed necklaces. But Veasey is adamant.
“Look at how the economy is.” He explains that some vendors still act like the economy hasn’t changed since 2007. “Just sell for what you really need. Sell for what people can really afford.”
An electrician by trade, Veasey used to work for Amtrak in Washington, D.C. He was making a lot and drinking a lot, he recalls. But he wasn’t happy.
He began selling his jewelry at the Uhuru flea market because he likes the atmosphere and the people, and he appreciates what the movement stands for.
“To tell you the truth, there are some days I’m worried about paying my electric bill,” he says. Still, he doesn’t have any regrets.
He holds up one of his necklaces for sale — an Egyptian fertility icon, popular with local rights activists. He holds up another, a spell charm, he says. Many of the others he is “still in the process of memorizing.”
A customer arrives at the table and engages Veasey in conversation while picking through the array of icons. He eventually selects a Jewish star and a Gothic cross.
“I don’t like to believe in one sign and ignore the others,” he says.
“Don’t ever do that,” Veasey agrees.
When the customer leaves, Veasey realizes the customer didn’t pay and chases after him. At first, he returns unsuccessful. But when he spots the customer between tables, he runs again, this time returning successfully and with a story of an apologetic customer.
“This is a living reality show right here,” he says upon his return. “Why would I stay home and watch TV?”
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