14th Annual African American Cultural Celebration draws huge crowd to Raleigh
RALEIGH (WTVD) -- A huge crowd gathered Saturday morning at the North Carolina Museum of History for the 14th annual African American Cultural Festival.
Performances by musicians, singers and dancers brought smiles to the faces of people like Delois Borders.
"The rhythm in my body just gets to jumpin'! I guess that's just the African in me, okay? But I wish this could just go on forever and forever! It's just not enough of it," Borders said. "And it's so good to see that groups can come together and capture all of this, and represent it to us. It just makes me feel proud to be an African American!"
The festival also featured educators like Dr. Valerie Ann Johnson, Bennett College professor of Africana Studies. She smiled when asked about the diverse crowd that included people of various ages and races.
"That's what it's all about! This is what we need to be doing to understand one another," said Dr. Bennett.
Jerome Bias, a participant in the festival, worked on a wood crafting project inside the museum. His project was inspired by the work of a pioneering craftsman.
"Thomas Day was a free black man here in North Carolina, making furniture between 1820 and 1850,"said Bias. "He was the largest cabinet maker in North Carolina."
Those presentations provided unique learning opportunities for young people.
"We're from a group home. We just brought our girls out into the community to see some different things, enjoy some things they've never seen before," said festival attendee Crystal Hicks.
The festival happened one day before the start of Black History Month. The date also coincided with the day Congress passed the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This Amendment passed in 1865, and it abolished slavery in the United States.
