Street Fair Survives, Expands
The festival was started in a blighted neighborhood.
By CAROLE HAWKINS, Times-Union correspondent
WAYCROSS - There's a leader from the African-American community who keeps telling people, "Yes we can!" But this one isn't running for president. Five years ago people told Carlos Nelson, director of the Waycross-Ware County Drug Action Council, he was crazy to launch the Oak Street Festival in a blighted neighborhood most had written off. But today the Oak Street Festival has survived and, by some measures, thrived. "People said to us, 'You can't do anything with that neighborhood, it's too far gone,'" said Nelson. "But it's not. We're 100 years ahead of where we were five years ago." The street fair that began with 20 vendors and one or two music groups has grown to double the size and now supports a day's worth of entertainers and a crowd of 5,000.
Oak Street Festival returns this year on Saturday. All events will take place from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on the main stage at Oak Street and Folk Street. "People come from out of town and use this as a homecoming event," Nelson said. They plan vacations and class reunions for Center High, the former blacks-only high school that drew from neighboring counties in the days of segregation. The midday highlight for this year's festival will be a performance from a man with a blue, red and yellow painted face. A black living-history storyteller, Jamal Toure, revives the African tradition of the Djeli with his performance, Day Clean - The African Soul. In Africa the Djeli served as walking history textbooks for their people, much like bards were for Europeans in olden days. "We tell a history of African people that you haven't heard in classrooms," said Toure. "We show the connection between African people and those here in Coastal Georgia." Toure's format includes specific material on Geechee and Okefenokee history, but audience interaction guarantees no two stories ever come out the same. The rest of the entertainment lineup celebrates black heritage, with high-caliber performances that cut across cultural lines. The morning kicks off with the easy sounds of saxophonist Leon Mack and the Gitlo Blues Band, while the afternoon ushers in rousing gospel from Genesis, Born Free Ministries praise team and Elder Troy Jackson and the Jacksonettes. Teenagers will relate to mid-afternoon performances by Jacksonville's Church Boy, a rap music ministry, and the upbeat tunes from rock artists Rashon Medlock and Angela Smith.
Festival committee member Larry Gattis says the Oak Street Festival appeals to a larger audience than just African-Americans. "When it comes to good music, I'm color-blind," said Gattis, who is white. "For me, this is an opportunity to enjoy some real talented people and some good food." The festival is part of a larger initiative to turn around a neighborhood that has seen its fair share of decline.
City Commissioner William Simmons said boarded-up buildings and peeling paint weren't always part of Oak Street's scenery. Back in the '50s and '60s, during the days of racial segregation, it was a thriving black business district. "This street is important because it helps young people understand what we once had in this community," said Simmons, who is chairman of the Oak Street Festival Committee. "It tells them it's more than what you see in your lifetime." Once the street had bustled with doctors' and insurance offices, diners, motels, a cab station and a club. At the historic Carver Theater, The Temptations, Harlem Globetrotters and James Brown all performed. The Oak Street Festival is one way to reclaim the community's heritage, he said. "When people don't see their history, they don't have a sense of direction in their lives," said Simmons. "You have to know where you've been to know where you're going."