Marlina Bowdery’s phone rang so many times she lost count.
“Two hundred calls or more,” said the woman behind M&J’s Southern Style Foods. “I finally shut it off.”
A friend had contacted her last week, wondering if she could share her restaurant’s information on a list of Lincoln’s black-owned businesses.
Sure, Bowdery said.
And then came all those calls: “The love has been amazing.”
All over the country last week, lists like Lincoln’s — and love for the lists — were drawing attention.
Buzzfeed posted its annual #BuyBlack pop-up shop list and an even longer list of black-owned businesses to check out online.
A small group of young people has been instrumental in organizing peaceful events nightly after protests over the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis spawned violence and rioting last weekend. These are their stories.
On Twitter, the owner of a Virginia bookstore said she’d been reluctant to identify herself as black in the past for fear of losing out on potential white customers.
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“Well I am indeed black,” Deshanta Hairston continued, “and this is my store and I will be screaming it from the mountaintops moving forward.”
Her words were retweeted 48,000 times and her shop inundated with orders. (She asked people to share the love with independent and black-owned bookstores in their own towns, too.)
Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis — a police officer’s knee on the black man’s neck for nearly nine minutes — protests had flooded the country, thousands taking to the streets of cities and towns to call for justice for Floyd and an end to the racism still permeating America’s institutions.
People wanted to put their money where their voices were.
“The graphic unjust death of George Floyd touched something in everyone whose skin has more melanin,” said Adrian Madlock, a Lincoln hip-hop artist, activist and father who started a list of his own in the midst of the rallies here and around the country.
“My own role as father and protector in the home is of utmost importance so I stayed away, but I felt there was something I could do to show solidarity.”
Madlock’s mother is Mexican, his father is black and his list has grown to 108 businesses, available on social media or to anyone who wants to email him for a copy (90madlock@gmail.com).
Abe Alfatemi spread the word of Madlock’s list on his Facebook page.
“Protest economically and patron independent black business owners in Lincoln, NE,” he wrote, inviting friends to add to it.
Community leader John Harris talks about justice -- and the lack of justice -- for black Americans, its long history and the young people trying to make change.
Leanne Mulligan posted a short list she spotted on Instagram to the Facebook page for her shop, Modern Vintage of Nebraska, at 33rd and B.
That list included hair salons and barber shops, art collectives and a cigar shop, a clothing store, a magazine and restaurants big and small.
People posted more options. One wrote: “How is it that I’ve never heard of most of these?”
She got some pushback, said Mulligan, who is white. People wondering why she was only supporting black-owned businesses.
She pointed out she was a fan of all small businesses. She lost a few followers.
“That’s OK,” she said. Now is the time to stand up and show support.
“It’s like, 'Hello, People … this is a good thing.'”
Mulligan didn’t know where her list originated, but as that list and others spread, people gave love to Flydogz and Stur 22, Mary Ellen’s Food for the Soul and Tiru Ethiopian, and not only for the food, but for the owners, too.
And Alexis Mayse was glad to see it. She started the list Mulligan had shared, taking suggestions and using Adobe to pretty it up.
“I went to the protest Sunday night and thought, 'What else can I do for my community?'”
Mayse grew up in Lincoln and will graduate from UNL in August with a degree in advertising and public relations, a minor in criminal justice and psychology. Her mom is white, she said. Her dad is black.
“We never made it a point to figure out what the black-run businesses were,” she said.
Which means this is a discovery for her, too, along with many of the more than 200 people who have shared the post.
“I’m just really glad it’s being recognized.”
Molly McConnell’s list, posted on Stand In For Lincoln’s Facebook page, has grown, too.
“It started as only restaurants, because food is political, and as more people began suggesting other places, they also added in other businesses,” McConnell said.
The story isn’t about her, said the graduate student, who is white. It’s about the businesses.
“Every dollar we spend is a vote for what kind of community we want to live in.”
She spent some of her dollars last week at M&J’s.
“As someone from the South, it made me feel cared for. I would recommend it to anyone.”
Last week, at his pop-up kitchen at 11th and B, Derick Gaspard got calls for orders — and congratulations — for Juju’s Vegan Cajun and Creole Cuisine from as far away as New Orleans.
The vegan restaurant showed up on a list compiled by Angela Garbacz, owner of Goldenrod Pastries — who also ordered lunch for her entire staff and brought him a tray of her pecan rolls.
It got a shoutout from Pepe’s — another small minority-owned restaurant down the street — and from Modern Love in Omaha, as well as from VegNews magazine, a national vegan food publication.
“Orders have grown exponentially,” he said.
He’s keeping up. Thanking hungry people for the love and asking for patience.
Ryan Lorchick used one of the lists to ask for help finding a black-owned concrete business. “I’m not a big protester,” he said. “But I’m looking for ways to be supportive. Trying to do better as a white person.”
Black-owned businesses have a part to play in the larger sea of societal change, Juju’s owner said.
“It’s important for young black kids to see business owners in their communities and as positive role models.”
The 34-year-old opened his popular pop-up last year and, last week, Gaspard watched the young protesters at work. A generation that seems poised to break the chains of generational racism.
“I have faith in them. I don’t think it’s going to happen all at once, but I see light at the end of the tunnel.”
Madlock, the hip-hop artist known as Sleep Sinatra, is going to be a dad for the third time soon, daughter No. 3.
“One reason I want to be active in the current social climate is I need my daughters to know there are people working to make changes.”
On Friday, M&J’s was open for takeout on North Cotner Boulevard. The pandemic had shut the restaurant down completely but after a month, Bowdery and her husband, Ira, opened three nights a week for to-go orders.
Stuffed turkey leg with dirty rice. Chicken and waffles. Catfish and fries. And always something extra, Thursday through Saturday.
That’s why she shut her phone off Wednesday. “They were calling on a day I wasn’t open.”
The woman who loves to feed people has been dealing with another loss since March, far deeper than the economic one caused by COVID-19.
The loss of her son, Timothy Montgomery Jr., a 32-year-old father who was shot downtown on March 13. A suspect has been charged.
And all of her sales since she opened for takeout are part of a fundraiser, the mother said.
“I’m trying to raise funds for my son’s funeral and burial.”