September 1, 2009
Okra Festival and the Beloved Community
On the last
Saturday in August, I could feel Alice Stewart and Dr. King smiling down
from heaven on the most successful Okra Festival in its 9-year history.
Alice, the co-founder of the Festival was smiling at the big crowds, and
Dr. King was smiling at a local model of his “beloved community”, working
together, having fun together and bringing something great to our
community.
And some
living folk were smiling as well. Dr. Hasan Jeffries, author of the new
book, “Bloody Lowndes” was selling out of his impeccably researched
history book, and Commissioner Dickson Farrior was seeing local economic
development at its best. Non-profits such as Mosses Volunteer Fire
Department and the Elmore Bolling Foundation were making a little money,
and all kinds of local food was being sold by local people. It was truly
a great day.
The crowd
has been estimated as a whopping 2,500! Now if each person spent an
average of $10, that means that $25,000 was brought into Lowndes County
during the Okra Festival. That doesn’t count the gas and other things
being purchased in our county. And I was sure to have a sign up telling
folks to visit White Hall, with its gaming entertainment and Civil Rights
Interpretive Center, Hayneville, with its pre-civil war historic
Courthouse and Jonathan Daniels marker, Lowndesboro with the Viola Liuzzo
marker and it’s historic antebellum homes, Calhoun School, and Holy Ground
Park.
My little
art and history center, Annie Mae’s Place had a proud new display of
information and a framed photograph of Elmore Bolling, a Lowndes County
martyr, courtesy of the Elmore Bolling Foundation, and that organization
sold Okra Festival t-shirts in 3 colors. Artists, fresh fruit and
vegetable vendors, home made ice cream and Italian ice cream vendors lined
my yard, and…..in my mind this is the best part…..people of all ages and
colors intermingled on a basis of equality and love.
Everyone
loved Sunny Boy King’s blues, and Jerome Hardy of Mosses brought me to
tears with his rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come”. How lucky we are to
have this talent in our midst!
My
neighbors had their yards just beautiful, and our Lowndes County road crew
made sure the grass was cut, making both Frederick Douglass Road and
Harriet Tubman Road look just great. I was so proud to be part of the
Burkville and greater Lowndes County community! Lowndes County had
previously erected a “Burkville: Home of the Okra Festival Sign”, and the
state of Alabama Transportation Department had allowed me to place my
homemade signs showing people the way (Google gets it wrong as do the GPS
systems)
I worked
hard on public relations and it paid off. We had articles in papers and
magazines statewide, and WSFA Channel 12 did us proud. As always, we got
good publicity from The Lowndes Signal.
But all in
all, the most important thing to me was that thousands of people saw
Lowndes County at its best. They learned about our history. They learned
about our arts and our music. They saw the friendliness of our people.
Thank you,
everyone. Thanks to our sponsors, the Cornerstone Community Outreach
Foundation, Commissioners Dickson Farrior and Joey Barganier, Prestige
Designs (check out the website at
www.okrafestival.org), and Black
Belt Community Foundation (which gave us a grant last year enabling us to
develop our website). Thank you Lowndes County for coming out and showing
your best. And thank the Lord, Alice Stewart and Dr. King for keeping off
the rain.
Next year
will be our 10th year! The best is yet to come.
For more information about the event
contact Barbara Evans at 334-324-7222 or by email at
editor@estherstrumpet.com.
TRUMPET
