- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Coming up, Florida ranked second in the nation in the number of black-owned businesses, major drivers in the state's workforce.

They account for more than $2.6 billion in annual payroll.

Meet the businesswoman whose invention started by helping patients at Moffitt Cancer Center and is now a multimillion-dollar product line sought after by hospitals and health care systems nationwide.

We explore community collaborations, preserving the legacy of minority-owned businesses as well as the family histories.

In Tampa, creatives issuing a call to action in the search for museum artifacts, and the University of South Florida, St.

Pete, has applied modern tech to fading pages of history from the region's oldest black-owned publication.

Plus, our experts share their other big stories in their industries.

All that is next on Florida This Week.

[music] Welcome back, everybody.

I'm Lissette Campos joining us on the panel this week.

We welcome Neville Lee, the exhibit designer behind Tampa's Black History Museum.

The permanent exhibition gallery will open next year.

And Neville is the principal designer and owner of Formless Creative Group.

He has more than 20 years of experience in museum exhibit development as well as curation of immersive experiences.

We also have Sherrel Sampson, the founder and CEO of Canviiy, an executive in corporate America long before she became the inventor of Canviiy, the company that she started in Tampa Bay in 2014.

And Kristina Keogh, she is the campus dean for the Poynter Library at the University of South Florida, St.

Petersburg.

That's where librarians and highly skilled preservationists digitized newspaper clippings that date back more than 40 years.

More on that later.

Kristina herself has more than 20 years' experience in research libraries in Florida, Virginia, and Indiana.

We begin with a collaboration between the Tampa Housing Authority and the Tampa Bay History Center.

The plan will help Tampa's Black History Museum reach a milestone generations in the making.

The first museum in the city devoted to Black History stands in the Encore neighborhood on land once known as The Scrub, Tampa's oldest Black neighborhood settled by freed men and women just after the Civil War.

Its main street, Central Avenue, became the beating heart of black business, music and culture.

Tampa's very own Harlem of the South.

Much of that neighborhood was later erased, but the museum's home endured.

It sits inside a historic red brick building, the former St.

James Episcopal Church, one of just a handful of structures left standing from the scrub.

For a couple of years now, the museum has opened its doors for community talks, book clubs and walking tours.

But there's one thing it has never had a permanent place to tell its story.

Well, that's about to change.

For the first time, the museum will have a permanent exhibition gallery.

A lasting home for the artifacts, the photographs, and the voices of Tampa's Black community.

It's set to be installed in time for June of 2027.

And now the people behind the museum are turning to the community, asking neighbors to help decide what stories these walls will finally hold.

We are very excited to have Neville joining us, the person behind everything that's going to be going into there a lot of pressure.

Neville, tell us about your vision for that space.

- Well, the vision was to kind of create something that's built for the entire community, not just one we're focusing on, but those that may be interested in it.

Some of those guiding principles are the organization, the building, the creativity, and, um, the reality of what helped the community get through all the ups and downs in Tampa Bay area - so when you look at creating that space with artifacts and multimedia components, how difficult is it because you're target audience, you're really focused on bringing in the next generation?

- Yes.

We wanted to trend a little bit younger as far as the push, so they can kind of keep the museum alive as they grow and then bring their children.

Um, it's, it's, it's an interesting dynamic.

Ultimately, it boils down to creating an experience that's memorable, both from an emotional standpoint, but also a visual representation standpoint.

Like, if it doesn't look great, then we won't.

We won't come, but we want to have some meaning and some depth to, to the story, right?

And it's a story about the people, um, African American, Afro Latino and Afro-Caribbean in this particular museum.

So we wanted to make sure that those stories live on and they touch kind of a 4D experience, if you will, and leave an impact in a mark.

- You have said that you would like to get muralist artists from the community to come and be a part of it.

Um, it's such an interesting space, right?

You have this beautiful church and you're trying to apply their talent to the windows.

Tell our viewers about that, how the murals will be created for the windows.

- Right.

So we have, um, seven areas that we're talking about throughout the museum as far as timeline goes.

And we want those seven areas to be represented on the exterior of the building.

So obviously it's a historical building, but we wanted to add a little bit of life to it and versatility and tell a story.

So it kind of pulls you into the museum itself.

The museum is only about 2,000 ft., so it's a small but mighty museum.

Um, but yeah, the local art that's pulling in the community, giving them a sense of ownership to the project and as a creative myself to give us a little creative spin on what that particular era may mean to them.

- So muralist would come in and they would have a specific era that they would select, and then they would make their magic on the windows.

- Yes, and that process would probably be, you know, we'll say, hey, create something for the civil rights era that means to you.

And we'll probably have a good amount of submittals, right?

And so we determine which one we'll select from that, that group and, and then apply it and digitize it and put it up there.

We might even rotate that out every other year.

So that way it's not just something that will last for 100 years, but hey, there's new energy, new voices, new vision for that particular same zone.

- So one of the things that I love about this is that you've called the community, the Tampa Bay History Center has made a call to action in the community asking for families to look at their family heirlooms, maybe photos and keepsakes, and submit them for consideration in the exhibition.

Sherrel and I were talking about different things that might be really cool to include.

Do you want to share with him?

- Absolutely.

So first and foremost, congratulations.

And I think it's an amazing concept just thinking through and being strategic about what you're doing.

But because I am in the beauty industry, as I think about all things African American and particularly in the beauty space, I cannot think enough about the vintage hot comb like that is one that's a staple for Black women just in the African-American community.

And so if there was one that could be included, that would be a great one.

- You got one.

Send it on down.

All right, all right.

- And Kristina, what goes through your mind when he's talking about all of these different elements and bringing in the younger generation?

What has been your experience at the library, at the Poynter Library on campus of USF, St.

Pete?

- Definitely the idea of bringing in the younger generation, it really resonates with us.

Of course, we're serving mostly college students, but also that idea that what museums do kind of bring people in.

The same with libraries.

We want to create community spaces.

And, you know, especially we, our college students are suffering ever increasing loneliness and things like that.

So having these touch points in community spaces, whether it's museums, whether it's libraries, whether it's other places where we can gather, I think these are really important.

So again, congratulations.

- And we're going to continue now with our next story.

The weekly challenger in St.

Petersburg is the oldest Black-owned and operated publication in West Coast Central Florida.

The weekly challenger was the brainchild of Cleveland Johnson Jr., an advertising man who turned a weekly listing of ads for Black-owned businesses in St.

Pete into more of a newspaper.

He added stories and photographs and announcements, and that really became a historical record of the St.

Pete Black community.

The first edition was on September the 21st, 1967.

Well, using modern technology, the Poynter Library at the USF St.

Pete took on the role of digitizing and preserving the physical copies of the publication, some of them dating back more than 40-50 years.

And Kristina is joining us now to talk about that.

That is quite a big project.

- It really.

- Is.

How what condition were these early editions in?

- Um, so the ones that we were able to get.

I think we're in very good condition.

My understanding is that the Johnson family did suffer a flood at one point, so unfortunately we don't have the earliest editions, but I think they had done a good job of saving what they could.

And that's kind of where we come in libraries.

We preserve things, we make them available.

So thanks to a grant from the state, then State Representative Darryl Russo.

He was able to get us a nice grant.

We were able to purchase some high tech equipment, document scanners, things like that.

Bring in some expertise, hire some students.

We've got a great digital journalism program on our campus.

So kind of help have them help with the process, learn these processes and be able to preserve what's there, what's still there.

So you can go online today.

They're open to the world and they look gorgeous.

- How many editions would you say are there?

- Um, So we have the earliest we have is going back to 1973.

So we have kind of sporadic in the 70s.

And then picking up in the 80s, we have almost a full run up-up through present day.

- It would have been fun to see the different stories that were making front page news.

What are some of the examples that you talk to your students about?

- So I think it's really important.

The things that we're kind of focused on the St.

Petersburg community, the Tampa Bay community, things that happened during that time period, but then also kind of national and international news, but from the perspective of that community.

So things, but, but we're hearing other voices, you know, through that publication.

- And so what was it like for the students that were part of that process to really get a glimpse?

It's like going back in a little time machine kind of.

- It really is.

It's well, it's, I think it's eye opening for them.

I mean, I think it's, it, it had an opportunity for them to kind of have points of connections that maybe they didn't realize.

But the other thing, when, you know, we love dealing with physical things, it kind of makes history palpable.

And I love the fact that students can still come today and look at the physical newspapers, while anyone in the world can look at the digitized examples as well.

So and, you know, they see themselves in it.

And that's important too, and they see themselves as part of the community.

- How complicated is that preservation process?

- It's pretty complicated.

Yeah.

We had the opportunity to hire expertise, people who had that sort of digitization experience, photography experience.

You, you probably may have delved into some of that as well.

So, so, so someone like you.

Um, but then to teach our students to teach our staff that, and then we have experts in things we call metadata.

So categorize them so people can find them, you know, applying keywords, things like that.

So it's complex, but then we want to make it as easy as possible for people to grasp.

- And bringing in Neville into this, how important is it to have these tools, these modern technology where you can take something that is exposed to the elements even under the best of circumstances, right?

When we save something in the air conditioner, there's still the aging process.

How important are tools to the creatives like the two of you?

- Well, first of all, being able to restore some of these things to something that we can actually see as part of that process, but also, you know, from our standpoint is to get kids to be interactive and adults to be interactive with something that we use every day on our phone, right?

So, um, bringing in that information that you bring to us, which is valuable information, is our history.

It's ways to create paths that we don't want to repeat.

Um, and some we do, but to, to give it new life, right?

To give it new life in a digital world.

And to your point about being able to spread it around the world, we can't pass that newspaper around to the world, but we can definitely digitize it and get it online and, and in a museums like ours.

Definitely.

- And I know you've been a big mentor going back to your alma mater school, talking to young people.

So I know that you've felt the excitement of students wanting to learn more about local history, whether or not they're African American, Hispanic or not.

There's just an innate curiosity, I think, in this newer generation.

- I agree.

I think what's so impressive is not only allowing the students to have access right to historical facts and figures and insights, but more importantly, seeing what the world was like at that time.

Right?

Oftentimes we forget that social media wasn't around.

So there was an appreciation for interaction and appreciation for land and all these other things.

So I just really love the fact that you are building something that really aspires, right?

Students and anyone who has access to it to really look at where they came from and think through the things that they could become.

Right.

And so I just, I love it.

- Well, we're going to move on to our last story.

It's all about the economy.

Florida ranks second in the nation in terms of the number of Black-owned companies, according to the Florida Chamber of Commerce, there are more than 250,000 Black-owned and operated businesses in our state.

The annual payroll of those businesses totals more than $2.6 billion.

The success of black owned businesses has far reaching effects beyond the black community.

Case in point is Canviiy.

Its founder and CEO, Sherrel Sampson, invented a hair and scalp product that started out by helping cancer patients at Moffitt Cancer Center eight years ago.

Well, today, Canviiy has an entire line of products that are purchased by health care systems and hospitals around the country.

And we are so excited to talk to Sherrel about that, not just for the hospitals.

General public is buying this as well.

Tell us about all the different stores that you're in now.

- Absolutely.

So, yes.

So we are headquartered in Tampa and we started very grassroots.

I mean, literally in the farmer's market.

I don't know if you're familiar with Ybor Farmer's Market, but that's what we started.

And so just really took our time, got an opportunity to listen to our customers.

And to your point, from listening to our customers, we noticed that a lot of them were struggling with scalp and hair conditions, things of that nature.

But more importantly, we had an opportunity to connect with an oncology physician.

And she shared that the itchiness in the scalp irritation of cancer patients.

And so we started on that journey, as you mentioned, in 2018.

And it's just been amazing to really start from the farmer's market and to now being thousands of stores throughout the United States, from CVS to JC Penny, Meijer stores, Wegmans, etc.. And so it's just a really exciting time.

But to your point, it hasn't been easy.

Florida is a great state to build a business, but you have to have the grit, determination and really understand the way that you're riding in business because it's been it's been an interesting one over the last 24 months, I must say.

- Now, you worked with a group of chemists to come up with the products.

First it was just the hair scalp.

But now you have how many different lines and what was it like to see them for the first time on the shelf of CVS, Walgreens, Walmart?

- Yes.

So initially, yes, we started out our hero product is called, "Scalp Bliss Itch Calming Serum."

And so I am my own customer, right?

Ultimately, we wanted a product that was very lightweight, that had great botanical ingredients, that was long lasting.

And so we went on that journey.

So it took us 14 to 16 months to develop that hero product.

And from there, again, we really started listening to our customers.

They said, well, what do you have for dandruff and what do you have for, "dry, itchy skin."

And so we created a foam scalp purifying foam treatment for dandruff and flakes.

Then we created a beautiful soap, our Nourish and calm soap.

And then we extended into the shampoos and conditioners and serums and things of that nature.

So today we probably have about, I should know this 8 to 9 products on retail available for retail sizes.

But in terms of health care, we actually have about five SKUs that's available for health care systems and getting ready to launch a new one in July.

So very exciting indeed.

- Several years ago, we spoke right before you were invited to the nation's capital to be a part of a Juneteenth event.

Share that with our viewers.

- So it was amazing.

So, um, that Juneteenth event, I was invited by CVS headquarters, their CVS beauty team, and they wanted us to interact with customers in store.

And so I had an opportunity to go to two locations In Washington, D.C., meet with customers, talk about the efficacy of our products, talk about the cleanliness of what they can enjoy among in terms of applying it and really seeing the results that one wants to receive.

And so it was really an amazing opportunity.

And the CVS team has really been great in terms of partnering with us.

- One of the things that I love about the three of you is all three of you focus on the importance of research and being able to pivot and adapt to change based on the information and the things that you're presented with.

How important has it been for you and your business to really use all of your resources?

- Oh very.

- Important.

[laughter] - I mean, I think one of the biggest learnings I've had in business is the language of business finance, right?

And so not only are you running a business and thinking through your resources in terms of, in terms of human capital, but how do you think through your resources in terms of cash flow, in terms of inventory management and production and all of these different things.

And so to your point, resources comes in many different gamuts, but it's important to understand the scope in which how you're going to utilize it, preserve it, and-and get access to it.

- Yeah.

One of the things that we like to do with all of our guests is we end the show with something called our other big stories.

Now typically, you know, we cover the news of the week.

Um, and so, but this time we'd like to take advantage of each of your expertise and we'd like to know what are the other, the big stories that are happening in your industries.

Um, Kristina, what would you say is your big story?

- Um, my big story I would say is, um, kind of starting with the weekly challenger, the way that we're building other collections.

We also like to say our collections talk to one another.

So we have things in our archives like the, um, Ernest Ponder collection.

And he in the 1970s was assigning his students to write about African American history.

And then in the last few years, we've brought on the Bob Devin Jones Studio at 620 collection.

So, so kind of things from their exhibitions, performances that you can read about in the Weekly Challenger.

So all of these are connected and all of these are telling the history of our community.

- You all are making being in the library cool again.

- It really is.

[laughter] - Neville, what would you say is your big story?

I know that you do much more than just the new Tampa Black History Museum.

- Yes.

Well, for me, we always are busy working on designing a winery in Florida.

Commercial and residential experiences.

For me, it's about an experience.

I don't care if it's a house or anything.

Um, it needs to be something that you enjoy that you kind of soak in and that you can invite others to.

So whether it's your home or your business, we need to make sure that people are comfortable there.

And that's my job, is to create that experience.

- I think that our viewers will be surprised to know that it's not just exhibition and museum curation.

You actually help some families rebuild after the hurricanes of 2020.

- Absolutely.

Um, after they received insurance money, they decided to expand homes, build ADUs or accessory dwelling units for additional revenue.

Um, or just expand the house to look a little bit better than it was before.

So, um, bringing a rose to the thorn and, um, that's what I'm here for.

- And Sherrel, what would you say is your big story?

- Oh, oh, so we have been in CVS, I think since 2020.

And our big story is the fact that CVS has integrated us into their OTC benefit program.

And so what that means is that most people who have health care plans; they also have OTC (over-the-counter) benefits.

Yes.

Yes.

Benefits.

And so if your plan qualifies for the CVS OTC benefit plan.

You can go into CVS stores and buy Canviiy scalp products for $0.

And so in this economy, we think that's really important.

And we think we appreciate CVS for including us in that program.

But it's just really exciting to be a part of the OTC benefit program because it's very hard to get into.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you.

- It's so wonderful.

Um, last piece of information.

Just advice for folks who are out there, maybe starting a business or maybe doing pivoting to change their careers.

What would you say is a good piece of advice that you got that maybe someone else could benefit from?

- Uh, dream big and dare reality to catch up.

- Okay.

I like that.

- Um, I would say ask for help.

The mentors are everywhere.

- And Sherrel and I would say be crazy enough not to give up.

- That's right.

[laughter] - Thank you so much for being here and making time in your busy schedules to join me.

Again, Our thanks to our panel Neville Lee, Sherrel Sampson, and Kristina Keogh.

Don't forget, if you or anyone you know has an item for consideration to Tampa's Black History Museum to the permanent collection, please submit a photo of that possible artifact to collections at Tampa Bay History Center.

Again, you submitted a photo of the artifact to collections at Tampa Bay History Center.

The exhibit curators are seeking community artifacts as we speak.

Plus, for in-depth coverage of local black history, visit wedu.org/triumph.

If you've enjoyed this episode of Florida This Week, there's a lot more stories that you can explore this summer as the nation marks its 250th birthday.

PBS is telling the broader story of our founding.

It includes a new one-hour documentary film called Declarations: Black Americans and the Revolutionary War.

It follows the men and women who fought for the promise of freedom and democracy at the nation's very beginning.

It's part of a special season on PBS.

It's PBS America @ 250.

It premieres this Monday, June the 29th, right here on WEDU at 10 p.m.

and you can also watch it on the PBS Passport App.

And that's a membership that benefits your local station right here WEDU here on Florida.

This week, the best story ideas often come from you, our viewers.

So we want to remind you that if there's an issue in your community that you think we should be covering, we want to hear about it.

Please email us directly right here to Florida This Week.

You can send your emails to us at ftw@wedu.org and tell us what's happening in your neighborhood.

And a quick thank you to the members who make Florida This Week and other WEDU programs possible.

Your support keeps independent local journalism on the air here in the Tampa Bay region, and we don't take that for granted.

We know you've got plenty of choices for your news and information, and we thank you for choosing us.

[music]