Kwanza Crawl Supports Black-Owned Businesses

HARLEM, NY — A black-owned bar crawl is about to bring thousands of revelers to celebrate Kwanzaa in the streets of Harlem and Brooklyn.

More than 4,000 tickets have been sold for the third annual Kwanzaa Crawl on Dec. 26. The event is a celebration of the holiday Kwanzaa as well as a venture to support black-owned businesses in Harlem and several Brooklyn neighborhoods, organizers said.

Revelers will be divided into 40 teams going from bar to bar on the first day of Kwanzaa, "singing and dancing, dressed in whatever makes them feel unapologetically Black and beautiful," according to the event website.

The six Harlem businesses participating in this year's crawl are: Cove Lounge, Gin Fizz Harlem, Harlem Hookah, Lenox Sapphire Harlem, Ruby's Vintage and Shrine.

Tickets start at $25 and previous Kwanza Crawls have raised more than $100,000 in a single day, said organizers. A portion of this year's proceeds will go to Barbershop Books, a nonprofit literacy organization in New York City.

Kwanzaa Crawl was founded in 2016 by sisters Kerry Coddett, a comedian and activist, and Krystal Stark, the owner of the talent management company Stark White Entertainment.

The sisters launched Kwanzaa Crawl in response to increasing gentrification, which, according to a New York City Comptroller's office report, has caused the number of black-owned businesses to decline steadily across the five boroughs.

"The Crawl embodies the seven principles of Kwanzaa while aiming to harness Black buying power and bring awareness to Black businesses," according to a press release.

"Part of what makes the event so successful is its partnership with other Black stakeholders within our community — showing the world what it looks like when like-minded people put their minds together."

For more information about the crawl, visit the event's website.

Patch editor Kathleen Culliton contributed to this report.

Photo: “A Great Day of Kwanzaa”courtesy of Rayon Richards