PITTSBURGH — He might be built like a bear with shoulders as wide as Atlas', but as Cecil Usher addressed the crowd assembled upstairs at Emerson's in Market Square on the night of Feb. 28, he couldn't help but get a little emotional.
"I love seeing all the Black excellence in the room," he said. "I couldn't have imagined this 12 years ago. Pittsburgh I love you for this."
The event, "Make Moves That Start Movements," was a cocktail competition showcasing some of the top Black bartenders in the city, to close out Black History Month. Pittsburgh boasts a small but mighty cadre of elite-level Black bartenders that is among the most talented and well-respected in an industry overwhelmingly dominated by white faces, and where Black employees were historically pigeonholed to back-of-the-house roles.
