Delighted Be Part of this “Oyster Day” Event! ~ Tonya Hopkins aka @TheFoodGriot
Oysters & the Archive: The Legacy of Black Foodways and Entrepreneurship in Brooklyn
For centuries, New York Harbor—including the waters around Brooklyn—was home to some of the world's most abundant oyster beds, making the city synonymous with oyster culture. Before the 20th century, when people thought of New York, they thought of oysters. This industry provided crucial economic opportunities for Black New Yorkers, who became skilled artisans in the trade and established their own oyster houses throughout the borough.
Inspired by the history of Johnny Joe’s Oyster House, a popular Black-owned establishment in the 1800s founded by Johnny Joe and his wife, Louisa Britton, artist and Community Memory Fellow Jeremiah Ojo will share his own research conducted at the Center for Brooklyn History’s archives. His work led him to discover Johnny Joe's story and connect it to modern-day Black entrepreneurs who are keeping the legacy of oyster shucking and Black foodways alive.
Join the Center for Brooklyn History and Kinfolk Tech for this National Oyster Day celebration featuring historians, entrepreneurs, community organizations, and artists: Dominique Jean-Louis (Center for Brooklyn History), Ben “Moody” Harney (The Real Mother Shucker), Tonya Hopkins (The Food Griot) and Jeremiah Ojo (Community Memory Fellow, Kinfolk Tech).
This event is presented in collaboration with Kinfolk Tech.
Participants
Jeremiah Olayinka Ojo is a Nigerian-American experimental preservationist, educator, and cultural entrepreneur based in New York. He works at the intersection of contemporary art, historic preservation, and social engagement, focusing on the history and preservation of Black diaspora cultural heritage and spatial equity. As the founder of Creative Milieu, a values-driven consultancy, Jeremiah redefines social, cultural, and spatial justice through creative enterprise development, small business coaching, strategy placemaking, and entrepreneurial education. For the last five years, his initiative, Ilèkùn Wa, has embodied these values through professional development programming and exhibition making. Jeremiah has lectured on creative enterprise development and value-based decision-making at several prestigious institutions, including Columbia University, the Rhode Island School of Design, Spelman College, the Royal College of Art, Bridge Street Community Development Corporation, NEW INC cultural incubator, and the Brooklyn Arts Council. He is the 2025 Community Memory Fellow at the Kinfolk Tech Foundation and inaugural 2024 Senior Fellow of Social Innovation at the Brooklyn Arts Council, where he contributed his expertise to advancing social and economic equity in creative communities. Additionally, he serves on the board of the Brooklyn Level Up Community Development Organization.
Ben “Moody” Harney is the founder of MotherShuckers, which started as the only oyster cart in New York City and currently operates as a 7-day location at pier57. Fascinated by the story of Thomas Downing, “The Oyster King of New York,” who was the son of freed slaves who peddled oysters on Wall Street in the late 1800s and went on to open one of the most successful oyster restaurants of his time, Harney envisioned operating his own oyster cart. Moody believes the oyster could regain its place as an everyman’s food. MotherShuckers along with more than 75 purveyors in New York City, donate all the shells to the Billion Oyster Project, an initiative to restore a billion oysters to the New York Harbor by 2035. Recycling the shells rebuilds the reefs so that new oyster populations can grow—as well as improving the water quality and stimulating a return of sea life.
Tonya Hopkins, aka The Food Griot, is a culinary history consultant, nonfiction storyteller, legacy cook, cocktail creator, and strategic sales professional specializing in ultra-premium, artisan crafted spirits. She brings to light the overlooked contributions, innovations, and entrepreneurship of Black food and drink professionals in the New World — past and present. She co-founded the James Hemings Society (named for America’s first classically trained chef, who was both enslaved and emancipated by Thomas Jefferson in the 1700s), and serves as lead Culinary History Advisor for landmark NYC historic sites including the Old Stone House of Brooklyn and Lefferts Historic House. Tonya was lead historian for celebrity chef Carla Hall’s Soul Food Cookbook, her Emmy-nominated HBO Max/Discovery+ TV series Chasing Flavor, and the Museum of Food & Drink’s (MOFAD’s) groundbreaking exhibition African/American: Making the Nation’s Table. She has hosted pioneering shows like Savory & Sweet on WURD Radio and The Kwanzaa Menu on Food Network, and is a contributor to major food and drink encyclopedias and publications.
Dominique Jean-Louis, Ph.D, is the Chief Historian of the Center for Brooklyn History at the Brooklyn Public Library, where she has most recently curated the exhibition Trace/s: Family History Research and the Legacy of Slavery in Brooklyn, and a pop-up exhibition, Memories Matter, in the Euclid Avenue subway station as a collaboration with the MTA's Vacant Unit Activation Program. Previously, she held the position of Associate Curator of History Exhibitions at the New York Historical. She received her Ph.D in US History from New York University, with her doctoral research focusing on race, ethnicity, and immigration in post-Civil Rights Era Brooklyn schools. Dominique regularly writes and lectures on Blackness in America, schools and education, and New York City history.
About Kinfolk Tech
Kinfolk Tech brings place-based stories to light, weaving together art, collective storytelling, and technology to create immersive narratives that reshape history, connect generations, and open new pathways for imagining the future. Dreaming with the Archives is a public art exhibition that transforms Brooklyn Bridge Park into a canvas for radical imagination through augmented reality (AR). As you move through the Park, your mobile device becomes a portal through which to encounter immersive augmented reality monuments created by visionary artists Ari Melenciano, Olalekan Jeyifous, Kiyan Williams, Wangechi Mutu, Jeremiah Ojo, and Hank Willis Thomas. The exhibition is open until August 30, 2025.
👉🏽CHECK OUT MORE TFG-Related EVENTS HERE 👈🏾
🖇️ SEE ALSO my 🔗 TFG LINKTREE for myriad ways to see what’s going on at a glance and stay in the loop ..