THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, January 28, 1997 TAG: 9701280203
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MIKE KNEPLER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 56 lines
A Virginia Beach poet wants to add a local entrepreneurial dimension to February's observance of Black History Month.
Sebrina Brown has organized bus tours from Norfolk State University to visit six black-owned businesses in Hampton.
Tours will be held on Saturdays, Feb. 1, 8 and 15. There will be two buses each of those days, at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. The six businesses being spotlighted are in the Todd Shopping Center in Hampton.
Each merchant will talk and answer questions for 20 minutes about what inspired him or her to go into business and about some of the struggles along the way, Brown said.
The $5 tour fee includes a meal at one of the businesses. Brown is organizing the tour with a co-sponsor, Dunamis Inc.
Brown is calling her effort the ``Let's Get Off the Bus'' tour, she said, because ``the bus has been a significant symbol in African-American history.''
The bus figured in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and early '60s, when blacks challenged segregation laws that prohibited them from sitting in the front of a public bus.
The bus also became a mobile classroom for discussing the issues of the day and also served as transportation to many national civil-rights rallies.
``Now it's time to get off the bus and support our community,'' Brown said in explaining the tour's title.
Brown said she devised the tour idea after participating in a poetry reading at one of the Hampton businesses. She said she found that the merchants in the Todd Shopping Center were mutually supportive of one another, and ``I thought this was something beautiful going on.''
Brown hopes the tour will become an annual event, but larger and two-way. She wants to transport people from the Peninsula to visit black-owned businesses in South Hampton Roads.
The businesses being spotlighted this year are Audiophonics, Mercury Shoe Repair, Pride & Joy, Cultural Expressions, Jazz M' Tazz and NaDere Photography. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Sebrina Brown
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``Let's Get Off the Bus'' tour
What: Visit to six black-owned businesses in Hampton and
discussion with the merchants
When: 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on successive Saturdays, Feb. 1, 8 and 15
Where: Buses leave from Norfolk State University, Gate 8, near
Norfolk Community Hospital
Information: Tickets must be purchased in advance. They can be
obtained at Angel's Food at 4291 Holland Rd., Virginia Beach and Art
Atrium II, 629 High St., Portsmouth. For reservations and more
information, leave message at 552-8079.