S.H.A.P.E OF HISTORY
Festival celebrates culture, heritage of Africa and diaspora
The rhythmic beat of conga drums reverberated across Our Park, as dozens of vendors showcased colorful African and Caribbean fashion from Ankara dresses and Dashiki tops to Rasta hats and ankhshaped jewelry.
Hundreds of Houstonians on Saturday came out to the Third Ward park to celebrate the 40th annual Pan-African Cultural Festival, held annually on Africa Day, May 25. Known previously as African Liberation Day, Africa Day commemorates the founding of the political bloc now called the African Union and marks the liberation of the continent from slavery, colonialism and apartheid rule.
“There are many in the African diaspora who came here voluntarily, but a whole lot came here involuntarily,” Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said at the festival. “We can’t forget from whence we came. We come from the sons and daughters of kings and queens.”
S.H.A.P.E. Community Center organized the first Pan-African Cultural Festival in 1979 to raise awareness among African Americans in Houston about their African history and culture. The first festival, held in a nearby parking lot, featured a half-dozen vendors and drew about 100 people.
Since then, S.H.A.P.E. — which stands for Self-Help for African People through Education — has grown the familyoriented festival to three dozen vendors, adding food trucks and musical performances and attracting more than a thousand visitors each year.
While the festival is a celebration of all things Africa, it’s also a call for African Americans to get involved in their community, said Deloyd Parker, the executive director of
nonprofit S.H.A.P.E. While African Americans and Africans have come a long way from breaking the bonds of slavery and casting off the yoke of European colonialism, there is still much work to be done, especially in light of high-profile police shootings and the mass incarceration of blacks in the United States, he said.
‘A great heritage’
“We’re not free yet,” Parker said. “Injustice and institutional racism, it’s probably more prevalent now than ever before.”
Regina Dember-Garvey, 58, has attended the festival each year for the past 20 years. The Third Ward resident and daughter of local community organizer Jean Wilkins-Dember, who died last year, she said she remembers the shock of being called the “n-word” while growing up in Long Island, N.Y. After moving to Houston three decades ago, Dember-Garvey said, she brought her two daughters, now college graduates living in Austin, to the festival to teach them about their history and culture.
“Growing up, people said Africans did nothing, but we know better,” Dember-Garvey said, listing the Egyptian Pyramids as an example. “We have a great heritage. I wanted my children to know that and to be proud of it.”
Deandra Abuto, a Houston native and writer, came to the festival to sell her self-published children’s book, “Mommy, Am I Brown?” Abuto said she wrote the book a couple of years ago after her son, Braydon, 7, started asking questions about his ethnic background when he entered kindergarten.
Learning culture
“I’m African American and my husband is from Kenya,” Abuto said. “I wanted to encourage my son to love his own skin and believe he can do anything.”
African Americans are more and more interested in their roots, said Carmalita Allen, a Houston native who is planning her first trip to Africa this summer. It’s been more than four decades since publication of Alex Haley’s book “Roots” took the country by storm and spurred interest in genealogy, and former President Barack Obama returned to Kenya, the country of his father’s birth, last year
Allen, 39, is planning to teach at a vacation Bible school in Ghana and visit Elmina Castle, formerly a major stop along the West African slave trade.
“Growing up here, you have this one image of Africa that I know is not true,” Allen said. “If you know where you came from, you can understand yourself. That’s what I want to do.”
“Growing up here, you have this one image of Africa that I know is not true. If you know where you came from, you can understand yourself. That’s what I want to do.” Carmalita Allen, a Houston native who plans to teach at a vacation Bible school in Ghana