By Polina Smith
Kalkidan Gebreyohannes and J’Maica Roxanne, founders of Blk Girls Green House at their city-center cultivation site in Oakland, California. Photo courtesy of @blkgirls_greenhouse on Instagram.
Blk Girls Green House is an Oakland-based plant boutique with artisan crafts and products, the creation of Kalkidan Gebreyohannes and J’Maica Roxanne. The two Bay Area locals collaborated with a mission: to establish a hub for Black-owned businesses where they can set up shop and flourish. A variety of pop ups occupy the retail space at Blk Girls Green House, filling the space with handmade crafts and local goods that speak to the current art and fashion trends. More importantly, it’s signaling that positive change is coming back to Oakland.
With the George Floyd protests of June 2020 ensuing a national reckoning around race, the importance of Black-owned businesses in historically segregated, redlined, voter-suppressed, and minority-majority communities has never been more pronounced. The existence of nearly insurmountable barriers to entry for many aspiring small business owners positions Blk Girls Green House as the neighborhood's most welcomed oasis. Blk Girls Green House is in the center of a neighborhood of Oakland widely known for its rapid gentrification, displacement of low-income housing, and stagnant working wages that combine to create an untenable living situation for many of its long-term residents. Amid this atmosphere of constant change, it becomes the kind of community-focused organization and business that can share its wealth of resources with members of the Oakland community and benefit the very people it serves.
Kalkidan Gebreyohannes and J’Maica Roxanne, founders of Blk Girls Green House at their city-center cultivation site in Oakland, California. Photo courtesy of @blkgirls_greenhouse on Instagram.
On Juneteenth of this year, Blk Girls Green House launched a recurring concert series entitled “Grooves from the Greenhouse,” a close-up concert experience featuring a live DJ, dancing, food and beverages. Through this initiative, Grooves from the Greenhouse pairs a distinctive and energizing curation of music with a lively atmosphere and a focus on local arts, crafts, and cuisine, presented in conjunction with the SF Foundation, Broccoli City, Empower Initiative, Alkali Rye, and Endeavors Oakland.
Blk Girls Green House boosts its hyper-local activation with a current collaboration with Oakland-based pop-up coffee cart Blythe Coffee. Theirs is an artisanal approach to coffee, centering the drinking experience around the senses of “sight, scent, and touch.” Furthering this endeavor, a list of monthly craft products is maintained and kept in rotation, with items ranging from watering canisters to handmade Moroccan Babushka slippers and fringe printed blankets. Blk Girl Green House is a creative oasis bringing back the vivacity of Oaktown proving that it’s a beautiful time to grow.