Antiquing, once a pastime reserved almost exclusively for the rich and leisured, is becoming increasingly democratized online—it’s never been easier to find mid-century modern furniture, Hollywood Regency decor, or pop-culture ephemera from the 1970s. One such purveyor of vintage goods is BLK MKT Vintage, whose founders, Jannah Handy and Kiyanna Stewart, curate a selection of cultural artifacts related to black history and life that they offer for sale on Instagram, and, soon, in a brick-and-mortar space.
“Whiteness as default is a ubiquitous concept, but it’s such an odd experience going into spaces that are devoted to antiquity, to our past, and you’re not expressly represented in any of it. It’s nostalgic dissonance, if you will,” Handy and Stewart told HuffPost in a 2017 interview. They aim to challenge this dissonance while bringing a love of antiques to a new audience. A scroll through their wares online makes it easy to believe in their mission: Objects recently on offer include a 1970 issue of Ebony magazine, a rare first edition of Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horse, and a beaded South African fertility doll.
A version of this story originally appeared in the September/October 2018 issue of Pacific Standard. Subscribe now to support independent journalism in the public interest.
