With sunny climate, go-go music cranking, folks buying and jamming, and distributors filling the H Avenue hall, the 2023 H Avenue Pageant on Saturday was an enormous celebration of the fantastic thing about D.C. tradition.

Whereas the occasion highlighted the wealthy variety of District residents, the 11-block annual competition that brings out greater than 150,000 residents, additionally showcased the various native Black entrepreneurs who’re working to empower their neighborhood with their wares.
In her first yr collaborating within the competition, entrepreneur Taryn Laster Whitehead took to the H Avenue Pageant to share her immune booster, On the Vine Elderberry Syrup, an all-natural, natural product, made in a business kitchen in Springfield, Virginia.
“We thought it was tremendous necessary that folks take into consideration their well being and wellness,” mentioned Laster Whitehead. “I feel when folks hear well being and wellness, they assume ‘health.’ However you’ll be able to look any kind of means and care about your well being. And so we’re right here to offer a product that basically helps to spice up your immune system.”
Laster Whitehead, who co-founded the corporate along with her Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority line sister, mentioned H Avenue Pageant was an ideal location to unfold the phrase about On the Vine Elderberry Syrup and the corporate’s do-it-yourself (DIY) equipment.
“It’s been phenomenal. I really feel so honored to have the ability to take part within the H Avenue Pageant,” she mentioned. “Everybody has been so welcoming and it’s been nice.”

Veto Premier and Charles Gussom of Black Pawn Sport additionally took to the H Avenue Pageant to not solely promote a product however empower.
“The concept was impressed by a mediocre chess participant on a mission to attempt to grasp the sport of chess,” Premier, who based Black Pawn Sport, informed The Informer. “Upon sitting down for the very first recreation, the very first thing he found was, whoever had the white items moved first; consequently, placing the black items in a defensive place. The second factor he found was, out of all of the items on the board — whether or not it was the king, queen, the bishop, the knight, the rook — the pawn presumably is the weakest piece as a result of it’s usually sacrificed for the higher good of the sport. However the pawn is the one piece that may elevate to change into any piece of the board. So we’re the Black Pawn Sport.”
The native clothes firm has a message in its branding.
“What’s distinctive about our pawn, is that our pawn already has the crown on its head, signifying that she or he is already self-identified and has been topped. What we see in our neighborhoods, the place we lack assets, folks usually inform us that we’re ‘by no means going to be something in life.’ All our lives, they’ve informed us we’re ‘nothing however the pawn,’” Premier continued. “We’re educating our neighborhood that we’re truly the true kings and queens by means of luxurious clothes.”