By Carla Thomas
Truth Contributor
The controversy surrounding the Al Peake & Sons pop-up market is bigger than carrots and collard greens. It exposes how the City of Toledo repeatedly makes decisions for Black communities without meaningfully involving the people already living, working, investing and building within them.
This is what institutional racism looks like. It does not always announce itself with racial slurs or openly discriminatory policies; sometimes it looks like a “community-centered” project designed without the Black businesses already serving that community.
The Real Issue Is Not the Pop-Up
This is not an argument against bringing fresh food into the neighborhood. The issue is that the city created a produce market in the heart of a Black community while overlooking thriving Black urban farmers already operating nearby.
SONIA Organics, located at 619 Woodland Avenue, is approximately 2.3 miles from Swayne Field Shopping Center. Johnson Produce Market [David Johnson, owner/operator], located at 524 Pulaski Street, is approximately 2.7 miles away. Mighty Organics [Thomas Jackson, owner/operator], located at 1489 Milburn Avenue, is barely a mile away.
These farmers did not suddenly appear when funding became available. They have served this community through its struggles, setbacks, and seasons of neglect. They built their businesses from the ground up, often while fighting for land, resources, recognition, and basic institutional support. They are not merely selling produce here. They are invested here.
Who Benefits from the Community’s Money?
The city committed approximately $150,000 to this 10-week pilot project. And Black folks’ money will leave this neighborhood and benefit three non-local families:
Keil’s Produce & Greenhouse — Swanton, Ohio.
Laux Farms — Monclova, Ohio.
Bauman Orchards — Rittman, Ohio.
This is laughable. Black dollars will leave the Black community to help build these farms, support these families, put their children through college and help fund whatever dreams they have for the next generation.
And to everyone who keeps referencing the RFP, you’re missing the point. The city designed an RFP seeking one vendor capable of planning, launching, operating, and evaluating the entire market, including distribution, staffing, food safety, merchandising, payment processing, and reporting.
Even if the Black urban farmers had seen the RFP, the whole structure favored a large, established operation. The city claims, “We remain committed to uplifting our small, local businesses.” I call BS. If that commitment were real, why didn’t the city create a model that allowed local farmers to provide the produce while another organization handled the market’s operations? The RFP included paperwork for primary contractors and subcontractors, yet it did not require the selected vendor to partner with, purchase from or subcontract with neighborhood growers.
In other words, this entire model was never designed with local growers in mind. Our Black farmers were not merely overlooked during the bidding process; they were excluded when the city decided what the project would look like.
So, my question is why would the city create a project that required one entity to do everything instead of designing one that built local capacity, divided the opportunity among urban farmers, and kept the money circulating within the community?
Because the City Sees US as a Project, Not a Partner
I’ll tell you why. Because the city does not see the Black community as equal contributors, business owners and taxpayers worthy of real investment. It sees us as a project, people who need someone to ride in on a white horse and save us.
When I stopped by the Al Peake Pop-Up Market on opening day, the whole aesthetic was giving mission trip to the inner city: “Let’s bring the poor Black folks some nice fresh fruits and vegetables.”
Meanwhile, thriving Black farmers are operating less than three miles away from the location.
Now Make This Make Sense
After the community raised questions, the city apologized, saying the RFP “didn’t reach many farmers and food producers who may have been eligible” and called the situation one of the “hiccups” of a new program.
Hiccup my arse.
Roslyn Clemens, the city’s chief of housing and neighborhood sustainability, told The Toledo Blade:
“We didn’t do any outreach … We didn’t do any outreach prior, to make sure as many people [knew].”
But Philip Peake told The Blade that the city reached out to him directly:
“It was about a year, maybe even a year and a half ago, that they reached out, mentioning that they’re redeveloping that plaza.”
So, which is it? The city did not outreach, yet it reached out to an outside vendor as much as a year and a half ago. A year-long process is not a hiccup, and it is not an RFP that simply “didn’t reach” enough people. The city knew how to reach the business it wanted.
You claim to remain committed to uplifting our small, local businesses and removing barriers that prevent them from competing, yet you created the biggest barrier: local farmers cannot compete for an opportunity they were never told existed and that was never designed for them in the first place.
What Happens Now?
In its apology, the city announced that it would “course-correct” by opening an opportunity for additional local food producers and providers to participate in the remaining Saturday events through the end of October.
This is not inclusion. This is afterthought and crumbs. You want to now invite Black urban farmers in after the contract has been given to a white company and white non-local farmers and call it good.
WE DO NOT ACCEPT YOUR APOLOGY CITY OF TOLEDO
This cannot end with a Facebook apology, a few late invitations, or another promise to “do better.” The community deserves a public forum, full transparency, and direct answers.
- Who decided that this was the best use of $150,000?
- How does this project benefit the Black community beyond giving us another place to spend our money?
- Where in the plan is there any real investment in the people, businesses, and resources already here?
- Why is our money always good enough to spend, but our businesses are never good enough to invest in?
BLACK PEOPLE: Stop mistaking access for inclusion. Giving us a place to spend our money is not investing in us. A market placed in a Black community that sends dollars somewhere else is not community development. It is extraction dressed up as service. We don’t need another project brought in to save us. We need investment in what has already been built.