African Arts in the Park

At the first annual African Arts in the Park festival, some people danced in time to the vibrant rhythms of various performing musicians, while others made their way to vendors selling art, clothing and books that proudly espoused many truisms of African culture.

The festival, held on June 12th in Oakland, was put together to replace the now defunct Harambee celebration, which was situated in Homewood.

Throughout the dry yet cloudy day, around 200 people meandered the hilly Schenley Park Meadows to take part in the festivities.

The Pittsburgh-based African Arts company Umoja organized the festival as a means to unify all kinds of people in pursuit of enjoying the richness of African art, culture and heritage.

"We were thinking how can we reach out to the community-at-large," Lavette Malloy Smith, Umoja's managing director, said. "Not just East Liberty or the South Side.  It was a way to honor local performers who don't get a lot of publicity."

Malloy Smith said the Harambee festival, which was around for over 20 years, was strong in the beginning but began to dwindle recently.

"It was a great festival, but it needed to reach out more to the public-at-large," she said.
Malloy Smith admitted that she was a little disappointed with the turnout to this festival. 

The event was sponsored by the Pittsburgh City Paper, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, PNC Bank, Highmark, McDonalds and WAMO. One of the intended sponsors, the Arts Council of Zambia, was unable to have its participants attend due to travel problems.

In all, the festival had 31 retail vendors, 13 food vendors and a host of local performers like the Flow Band and the Kuntu Repertory Theatre. Some vendors traveled form nearby states to support this event.  Larry "Poncho" Brown, a Baltimore-based visual artist, produced a commemorative poster for the festival.

"I do a lot of African-American events," Brown said. "This is the 28th commemorative poster that I've designed.  I find something like this more important to be involved in than a traditional arts festival." Brown's paintings portray family unity, spirituality and struggle. His works have been published and exhibited nationally.  He was also recently selected as "Artist of the Year" by the African-American Visual Arts Association.

While the focus on African culture was strong throughout most of the festival grounds, the food available was more of an American flavor.  However, one authentic harvester of African and Caribbean cuisine was there:  Irieites, a restaurant and catering business based in the West End. Iris Sesay, the owner, originally hails from Sierra Leone. 

Sesay was busy serving a myriad of customers hungry for the spicy aromas of curry and jerk chicken.  At her restaurant, Sesay also serves West African staples such as goat, fufu dinners, peanut butter soup and cassava leaf dishes.

Angela Howez, a local member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was helping Sesay with the organization of the food.

"It hasn't been difficult to get black people to enjoy African and Caribbean food here," Howez said. "However, Africans in this area have had a difficult time getting the type of support that they need from banks and investors, because of the language barrier and other issues."

Another local vendor at the event, Sooty-face Publishing House and Designs, promotes literature meant to inspire African Americans to embrace knowledge about their ancestry and philosophical identity.

"All of these poems were written by different generations of my family," business owner Rhodah Williams said as she leafed through a collection of poems entitled "Restoration: Our Philosophy Through Inspired Poems."

Perhaps one of the most effective ways to continue communicating the greatness of African culture is to expose it to the youth. Underneath the festival's Children's Hut, Temujin the Storyteller slyly mimicked the movements and vocals of ancestors.  Temujin strongly believes in carrying on the African oral tradition.

"It's an issue of being touched by the spoken word," he said.  "When you interact with the audience, you're engaging in an act of love.  I must touch them with my eyes and with my heart."

Temujin, who's been performing as a storyteller locally and nationally since 1968, said he goes to all kinds of festivals to showcase African storytelling and history. "We as black  people began the renaissance by spreading out and influencing others,"  he said.

Upper left-hand corner, Larry "Poncho" Brown stands in front of the commemorative poster he created for the festival. (All photos by Carmen Livingston)