Philly’s Candy Lady. You know her. And never count her out.

You know it’s the Candy Lady even from far away. She often has her hair in a puff and from a distance she looks like she’s floating, moving with a box full of candy on her head. In the box that she’s balancing, there’ll be Sour Patch Kids, and Milky Ways, and Dots, M&Ms and Reese’s Pieces, and more, often in smaller boxes themselves, like candy from a concession stand.

More than a decade ago, she had a moment where she closed her eyes and saw a vision. She saw a woman in Africa with a basket on her head. And then she knew.

“I just said God... give me something where I don’t have to lie.”

The Candy Lady became a full-time vendor at that time. Some people know her on sight, others from the sound of her. She’s always singing. “Buy my candy! Oooooooh. Buy my candy.” They’re jingles; they’re serenades. She’ll remix popular music and give it a candy twist. Like, in place of “Do I ever cross your mind, anytime?” she’ll tweak Brian McKnight’s lyrics to sing: “Does my candy cross your mind, anytime?”

So on this day, she was floating across 52nd street. The El hurtled above; its riders descended down the grand staircase. As people shuffled up and around the corridor, person after person let it be known they were glad to see her.

It was the first time she’d been selling on the West Philly corridor since the pandemic began.

It was spring. The Candy Lady was back.

Before the pandemic, the Candy Lady, whose legal name is Lynette D. Morrison, was the person who might invade your personal space on the bus or at a bar. She was the street vendor who roved so frequently into highly trafficked areas that she found herself at protests, near the scene of the 2019 active shooter’s standoff, and at a strip club pole dancing without dropping the box. (Her protest sign reads “Black Candy Matters,” and the strip club appearance made her go microviral.)

She used to venture out, into public spaces, into salons and into barbershops, into longtime relationships with business owners throughout the city. She visited so many places so persistently that she forged an impression on local memory, especially within Black Philadelphia. Here, she’s a celebrity.

But while the Candy Lady has become a Philadelphia fixture, a form of celebrity that she could easily monetize continues to elude her. She’s living with friends in Olney but is still dreaming of a place of her own. She reminds John Morrison, a cultural critic, podcaster, and DJ who’s seen her work his parties, of other figures who’ve become popular on social media, like Philly Elmo.

“That dynamic where you see creative Black folks that are working class really contributing to culture,” said John Morrison. “These folks don’t have the straight line to capitalize [from it.] It definitely mirrors the racialized economy of the society we live under.”

Her path toward the big time is winding and unclear. But, she’s never counted herself out, and never counts out her city. How she’ll make it can’t be predicted, but if you know the Candy Lady, you know she never gives up.

Selling candy for Morrison has always been a deeper calling, a gift she learned from her godmother. Harriet Jones stepped up when Morrison’s biological mother, Lorna Morrison, a disabled woman who died in 1993, wasn’t able to care for her. She showed Morrison that food entrepreneurship could turn some coins for sure, but it was also a means to lift spirits. Morrison, a deeply spiritual person, never loses sight of that part.

The Candy Lady originated when Morrison was a student at Hope Charter School, where she and acclaimed chef Omar Tate were classmates, after she noticed a lack of vending machines. Morrison was working toward college, leaning toward a career in early childhood education, and hoped to open a daycare one day.

When Jones died at 71 in late 2009, everything unraveled. “It still hurts. I’m still trying to get used to being on my own,” Morrison shared. “I don’t have that home that I can go back to.”

“[Other people] was able to go off to college, come back, do something, mess up,” she continued. “I didn’t have that.”

So she made the best with what she had, and found local celebrity as the Candy Lady.

“I have a lot of ideas,” Morrison said, on her future. “All I need is a little bit of capital.” But capital has been hard to come by.

For a few months earlier this year, Morrison worked as a hostess at a seafood restaurant. She wiped menus, joked with customers, routinely inviting diners to come back for karaoke night. At her first official shift in March, she was busily making sure a party of 12 were happy during a birthday dinner.

That night she was brimming with happiness. It was the change and stepping stone she wanted. By summer however, she’d lost the job, she said, over differences with the owner, for reasons that are still a mystery to her.

“I have my candy to fall back on. It’s fine,” she said.

So she’s back on the streets that made her famous. The magic of selling candy is something she’ll always love. “Candy makes me normal,” she said. “It allows me to spread laughs and joy. But I’ve always been that way.”

“I’m not scared to fail,” she said, after a week that included performing as an understudy in a stage play in Rahway, N.J., and vending. “What if somebody look at me this way? So what, who are they? They don’t pay your bills; what can they do for you? Who cares?”

“I’m doing everything that I know to do, from what I learned from the Bible, learned from God. What I learned from my mom. I take what I’ve learned all that and remix it to my own survival kit,” she explained. “I have to live my life the way I know how to. And that’s the only way. There’s no basic guide to life.”