When two of the nation's premierbasketball tournaments dribbled away fromRaleigh - and why wouldn't they, when the venue for games was located in a cow pasture miles from downtown? - they left a void in the city's cultural offerings.
City Councilman James West, with help from a couple of county commissioners and local businesses, is trying to fill the hole left when Charlotte stole the CIAA basketball tournament from us in 2006 and the MEAC tournament left after three years in 2008.
Their solution: the African American Cultural Festival, which runs Saturday and Sunday on Fayetteville Street. The festival will include bands, arts and crafts and vendors.
Festival chairman Ken Martin said West and county Commissioners Lindy Brown and James Webb "got together with Mayor [Charles] Meeker after we lost the CIAA and MEAC to discuss how Raleigh could still have something that was invigorating to the black community ... and will have some cultural significance." Some of the city and council officials who opposed funding the event "pulled a few things out," Martin said, "and made it appear that it would be just a party. It's not. It's going to be fun and enlightening. It won't be just a bunch of people shaking their booty."
Perhaps not, but you know there'll be some booty-shaking going on. How could there not be, when one of the scheduled performers is Go-Go king Chuck Brown and there will be various other pop, rhythm and blues and rap performers?
"Of course, we're going to keep it clean," Martin said of the rap group Cooley High, noting that there will be a children's stage for families with kids.
The cultural enlightenment will come from works by artists such as John Biggers that will be displayed at the Sheraton Hotel and from another Chuck - Chuck Davis, founder of the African American Dance Ensemble.
"Financing has been challenging," West said, "but we feel good about the corporate support we've received. I think we'll have an excellent festival, considering the [national] economic decline we've seen. We plan to expand it and make it one of the best in the nation. We hope it'll become a destination" for people from around the country.
If the festival does become a destination, Martin hopes it will be one for all. "We're trying to engage everybody," he said. "It's not just for African-Americans, despite the name." The event, he said, is an opportunity for everyone to learn more about his culture. "I go to the Indian Cultural Festival and the Hispanic Cultural Festival," he said, "and you learn something about their culture every time."
West agreed.
"I've spent a lot of my time trying to empower people and pull them together," he said. "I just felt that we don't have one and a lot of other cities do, so we'd have one. I think it'll bring pride, enlightenment, enrichment and hope."
It'll also give you a chance to shake your booty if you want to - and that's never a bad thing.
