Market Fare

This open air market was photographed in 1889 by B.W. Kilburn.
It depicts African Americans at an open-air market in Washington, most likely in the vicinity of the Center Market, where the National Archives building now stands. Many poor African Americans sold all manner of foodstuffs in what was likely the only venue available to them at that time--the market curbside, which they could occupy for free as long as they claimed their space before anyone else. In 1892, under the title, "War Didn't Efface Them," the Post reported on older African Americans that had survived slavery: "Here on every market day year in and year out are to be found the sturdy remnants of the old plantation stock. Nearly all of them own their own little patch of ground, and their stock in trade displayed on an upturned box or barrel consists of what they can raise with the hoe or glean from the wild products of the woods and fields."

Source: Lost Washington, D.C., by John DeFarrari (2011)