AFRICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE:
African American Festival focuses on empowerment and having a good time
Now in its 40th year, the African American Festival downtown expects 300,000 this weekend at what organizers call the largest free cultural festival on the East Coast. The festival, which celebrates African-American life, music and culture, has increasingly emphasized empowerment, education and community involvement.
Madison L. Poole, just 15 and already a business owner, spent Saturday afternoon describing the unique attributes of a brand of nail polish she founded as women and girls filed by her Princess M Nail Polish booth at the African American Festival in downtown Baltimore.
First of all, she told potential customers, the products are all-natural, and shades such as Color Me Coral and Purple Fusion are unique since she helped create them with the help of a chemist she found online.
“I want to build it higher,” Poole said of her business, which she started because she aspires to be a cosmetologist and thought, “Why not start now?”
On the first day of the weekend festival, the Parkville teen sat among other young vendors and business owners in the BrownGirl Village tent, all participants in an entrepreneurial program for girls of color in their preteens and teens. Their tent was joined by dozens of other tents and booths, food trucks and a main entertainment stage that filled the parking lots between Camden Yards and M&T Bank Stadium. Entertainment headliners included R&B singers Angie Stone and Goapele on Saturday and hip-hop artist Common today.
Marking its 40th anniversary, the celebration of African-American life, music and culture has increasingly emphasized empowerment, education and community involvement. Organizers were expecting more than 300,000 attendees for what they bill as the largest free cultural festival on the East Coast.
“It’s good to be with other young female entrepreneurs trying to promote their businesses,” said henna artist Seneha Speaks, who offered free henna tattoos and sold Indian jewelry and key chains, part of her business, Se’Henna. “It’s a good way for the community to come together.”
Tina Sheeler of Cockeysville admired Speaks’ work.
“You walk around with a piece of art on your skin,” said Sheeler, who goes to festivals looking for unique clothing and artisan-made jewelry.
Speaks said she learned henna tattooing from her grandmother, then practiced on her own before launching her Woodlawnbased service last summer. Her best friend, 16-year-old Morgan Peck, sat next to her, acting as “sales representative,” as she showed off an arm tattoo.
Dynamic Health Care, a communitybased psychiatric care center on South Conkling Street, sponsored the festival’s Kids Zone, where toddlers dug with shovels in sandboxes, children bounced their way down two inflatable slides and teenagers and police officers took turns shooting baskets into inflatable hoops.
“It’s a fun way to engage the community,” said William Batts, Dynamic Health’s program director. “We just want to be a staple in the community and a resource in the community. It’s an opportunity to remain a part of the community and just have fun. Good weather. Good people. Good music.”
At the Outward Bound tent, festivalgoers got a flavor of the nonprofit learning expedition organization’s “Police Youth Challenge” when they got a chance to climb a 27-foot rock climbing tower. Jamie Seward, director of advancement for the Baltimore Chesapeake Bay Outward Bound School, said the mission of the program at Leakin Park, in which city school students and Baltimore police officers interact, is to “change perceptions between youth and police officers. And it’s working.”
Festival attendees who wanted to scale the tower were strapped into harnesses before attempting to climb.
“Right arm up! Left leg!” James McKethan shouted to his 9-year-old daughter, Neveah Sheldon, as she slowly made her way up. “Keep going! Keep going!”
Neveah reached the top, then climbed back down and announced: “I want to do it again.”
The festival has grown since its first year in 1976, when Tanza Lightfoot of East Baltimore was 10 and part of a dance troupe that performed on the main stage at Hopkins Plaza.
The East Baltimore resident returned to the festival Saturday. She said she usually doesn’t like crowds but was enjoying herself.
“It’s really great,” she said. “It’s something people look forward to on Fourth of July weekend, to come together and enjoy our culture … a combination of all walks of life, not just African-Americans but everybody.”