A Conversation with Cjala Surratt: Owner of Black Citizens Brigade

Highlighting more than just clothes.

by Bella Tabak ★ OCTOBER 23, 2024

After a year of being open, Cjala Surratt has decided to expand her storefront in downtown Syracuse. From vintage leather jackets, stacks of wool sweaters, books, hot combs, records, or magazines, Black Citizens Brigade has something for everyone. Surratt has created a safe space for customers to shop and learn about Black history. The space has come a long way from where Surratt started. “This was like overflow storage space for the person who owns the building. It had wires hanging down… It was a mess. And there was no door. So literally, it was like, okay, let's try to lean into this dream and see what we can do.”

Can you explain your history and your time in Syracuse?

Okay, yes, so I grew up here, primarily in Syracuse. I'm a little bit of a military brat, my mom was in the military. But I'd say much of my growing up was here in Syracuse, New York. I went to middle school here, I went to high school here. I'm a Nottingham alum, but I'm also an alum of Syracuse University as well. Up until a year and a half ago, I worked at Syracuse University, I was the marketing director for an art gallery there, Light Work and Urban Video Project.

I have two daughters, one is a rising senior in public policy at SU, and my other is 12. They're both amazing, and I have an amazing husband of 25 years, and he works at Center State CEO. He's also a professor, he works in entrepreneurship and strategic planning.

How would you describe your store to somebody who hasn't been here before?

I would say it's an invitation. It's an invitation into, I say it's like a Black family photo album, that I have archival images on the wall, photos on the wall. I think that goes back to my ten years working with an art gallery that was photo-based-centered. But also, I think even in my growing up,  that these kind of photos are tucked away. I think for every culture, right? Their grandma had them tucked away somewhere. They're not out.

But I'm thinking about the clothes here in the 1950s to 1980s, and a lot of those years are very, there's a lot of trauma in those eras for Black and Brown communities. We have the Civil Rights Movement, we have segregation, we have the crack epidemic that's happening in the 1980s. But how Black community got through, or Brown community often gets through, is through joy. It's called Black Naturalism. And all that means for Black vernacular images or photo-vernacular images, it's community. We went to church, we went out to parks, we went to family reunions. It's just regular things. 

Could you give a little history of how you opened the store? 

So I'd say in the midst of, like everybody else, being locked indoors for two years during COVID, that, you know I was looking for ways to connect with my daughter, my eldest daughter. And one of the few things that was open was thrift stores and the Goodwill. And so that was someplace we could go.

 And I think that it's in my blood that I have in my history, my great-grandmother was a seamstress for a man named Daddy Grace. So if you think of like Liberace, he was the Black Liberace at this time. So she would actually travel to where he was and he would have like these extravagant garments. And actually one of his costumes is in the DuSable. I'm going to be honest, I don't think it's a costume, it's a suit. 

What is that?

It's a museum in Chicago, Illinois. And so then there's also milliners in my family. And then I think working in the art sector for so long, there's a certain freedom in terms of attire. And also just, you know, clothes can make you feel good. And then I also think that, yeah, ultimately, so okay, so post COVID, things really began to gather in my home. And I was also thinking about, okay, what do I want to do? I was very much involved in social justice movements. 

I started the Black Artists Collective with another cohort of individuals. So I was thinking about where can I use my labor, where can I use my time? And after almost a decade at the university, I was like, okay. And then my husband was also like, so can I have the sunroom back now? Because it had begun to really have a lot of things.

Do you think that you would have started your business if the pandemic didn't happen? 

That's a good question. No one's ever asked me that. I don't think so, and I think it's because the pandemic, for good or bad, gave us space to think about ourselves, think about our place in the world, think about what we had to offer, think about mortality. 

Really, there are people young and old who are passing away. What legacy am I leaving behind for my two daughters? What was left to me? What skills can I give at this time? Then, of course, there was a national reckoning around race and policing. You know what? I'm not sure. I don't know if I would have made space in my life to think about that. Maybe not. That's interesting.

 So you're already renovating after a year of being open. That's pretty impressive. 

 I think that, well, it's really interesting because in the beginning, I was like, oh, I think too big. I don't want to overwhelm myself. I don't know what this vision is going to be. But what happened is people kept standing around in the store, right? They would come in. And people were having all different kind of things happen, right? There's a lot of people who are having, I call, body journeys, right? Things have changed for them in COVID. They've lost or gained weight. They have different professions now. They're not sure who they want to be. 

And I have the privilege of kind of being in a space to say, the store is yours. Try whatever you want. Try to figure out who you want to be and how that's expressed through clothes. And then other things were happening. They were reading books. They were seeing the other kind of materials I have here. We began talking about politics and gender and race and local history. And I would feel bad because there were people in here for like an hour sometimes. And I was like, I don't have any place for you to sit. And then I said, okay, this is a community gathering space.

So would you consider this kind of like a third space for the community?

That's the perfect word. Yes, I definitely think it's a third space. I lean into it not being transactional as relational. I know I run a business. I know I have a bottom line. I know I need to make rent. But I feel like more and more so people are looking for community. And I see these things here as utilitarian because, of course, they're books and they're records and they're clothes. But they're also a great prompt for narrative to talk about who people were and also who people aspire to be. I think that can live in this space as well.

So back to you expanding your storefront. Can you just explain a little bit of your vision for the store? 

Okay, so the vision is that in addition to more space for more clothes, particularly I have high-end clothes, so there's another half of the store at my house. So in the course of acquisition, I've ended up with some things that are quite valuable. But A, I don't want to give people a sticker shock. And B, you know, those are not garments you want people in and out of as frequently. So I'd like to have a space that's dedicated to the more higher-end items.

 I'm going to have a dedicated space for the books and the records, like a kind of mini bookstore within the store. And then, as I was saying before, I want it to be a place where people can come and gather. Can we come and write poetry together? Can we pick a book and read it and figure out what does it mean to us? Small indie films, show them in this space as well.

What advice would you give to other black women who are aspiring to open their own businesses?

Don't wait. Don't wait for it to be perfect. Don't wait for it to all fall into line. There used to be a tea shop here on the corner. It was 210 Teas. It was Kahs, and there were many times I'd come in here and it wasn't quite right. And she was like, open the store. And I was like, yeah but. . . she's like, open the store! And I would have a whole host of reasons as to why it wasn't. She's like, but it's never going to be perfect.

 So I think if we're waiting for the perfect time for everything, you're not going to open your business. The other thing is that there are resources out there. There's a ton of resources with the Wise Info Center that focus primarily on women entrepreneurs. There's the Onondaga Small Business Development Center and  and Upstate Minority Economic Alliance. There's a host of things that you can lean into to help you. I think I'm going to say to Black women in particular it's okay to ask.

 I think that there's this notion that we're strong and that we have it all together and that we can do it on our own. I think that yes, all that is true, but we can also say, you know what, I am not sure. And I don't know. And can someone help me out?

It's okay to be a little vulnerable.

It's okay to be vulnerable. And there's strength in asking as well.

 I can't not ask this because you look so perfect today. 

Okay, thank you.

 Where is everything from? How did you style it? Why did you put it all together? 

Okay, so I'm Muslim, so my hair is always covered. And I opted for a turban. I think there's a lot of different reasons as to why I opted into a turban. I think there's historical reasons. I also think I'm cute. And then there's kind of what they call Black ivy. It's kind of a mixture of collegiate but also relaxed kind of fit. I tend to lean into that. You'll see that in the clothes as well. I like things that have clean lines, clear silhouettes, that there's attention to detail. I like color and texture and layering of patterns. Yeah, things that are about expressing yourself.

 In terms of the store where I get things, I think what's interesting is now that I have a brick and mortar, so often I have people come in who are like, you know what, my grandma is really a fabulous dresser and we're ready to let some things go. And I think that's important. I went to an estate sale recently and I was really a little disappointed because people were just kind of flying through this home.

 And I understand that there's a purpose, there's an intent to sell these items, but I also was like, we should be a little more tender and generous and that this still is someone's life. And so that's why when things come to me, I like it coming that way because I get to find out, you know, grandma worked for this company, she was the first woman that worked there, or there's a woman who came in, I was like, it's all dresses. She's like, yeah, because women weren't allowed to wear pants.

So do you like being able to preserve people's history through reselling? 

Absolutely.

 I think it's essential. I think it's absolutely important because I do a talk that has to do with the Letterman sweaters and those are primarily for men, but they're primarily for men because it wasn't until Title IX that women decidedly were like, hey, we'd like our own Letterman sweaters. It's not just about being someone's girlfriend because we have our own athletic accomplishments, our own scholarly accomplishments. So like again, you look at these things. I had a woman come and ask for women's jeans women's jeans from the 1930s. Those don't exist.

 They don't exist. You can wear men's, but there are all these social norms and gender normatives that are built into these clothes. So one more thing I'll tell you. I know the recording's going to run out. So you asked me about one of my favorite garments. It isn't in the store because I need to get another one. It is a cardigan. 

So I do a talk about cardigans. So World War II effort, coming out of the World War II effort you know, women had seen their aunts and their elder women go off into war effort. So they could imagine something different than being at home. And so this trickles into academia. And so what you see is women start to wear jeans. They start to wear dungarees. They're called dungarees and not jeans. They start to wear men's dungarees and they're wearing men's cardigans.

 And they start to call them sloppy sues. And yes, they call them sloppy sues because there are now letters going into Dear Abby saying, my daughter doesn't look like a girl. How is she going to get married? That it's going to cause her husband to drink. That it's going to cause her children to be slobbery and have mental illness. This is over a cardigan. This is literally over a cardigan. And we have this whole entire pushback. The best one was a letter from a man who had returned from the war effort that said, I went to war and this is worse than anything I ever saw in war.

 There's power in clothes.