African Diaspora
odd: label: Introduction
content: The African Diaspora program was created to pay tribute to the widely varied cultural contributions of the black American community while depicting the historical and cultural continuum that links black Americans to their African roots via the Caribbean Islands and Latin America. From the U.S., the Festival featured some 20 craftspeople and foodways demonstrators, as well as two dozen musical performers or ensembles. International contingents came from Ghana, Nigeria, and Trinidad and Tobago.

Musicians, dancers, cooks, woodcarvers, hairdressers, basket weavers, and fishnet makers from three continents exhibited the unity within diversity that characterizes the culture of Africans and their New World descendants. Performances covered urban and rural black experiences, secular and sacred life, home and community activities. Visitors witnessed rural lifestyles as reflected in basket making from South Carolina, Mississippi, and Trinidad and Tobago. In the culinary arts area, activities focused on the use of such foods as okra. Children's games and story-telling from Trinidad and Tobago, Washington, D. C. and Ghana were presented. In the music area, sacred and secular forms from West Africa, the Caribbean and the U.S. demonstrated the continuum in the Shango cult, the creation of steel bands, and calypso song. Black music of the U.S. illustrated the movement from country blues and spirituals to gospel, urban blues and jazz. U.S. black dance reflected the evolution of the black experience in America while showing the consistency in the line of the body and the importance of emphasizing certain body positions, and, in many instances, the same body steps. Similar utilizations of the body were seen in the songs and ceremonies of the traditional black church: rural Baptist, urban holiness and congregational. Performances and demonstrations took place in three structures: the church, the market place, and a traditional African house.

The African Diaspora program was led by Rosie Horn (Program Coordinator, later Rosie Lee H. Hooks) and Bernice Johnson Reagon (Folklore Specialist). It was organized with guidance from the African Diaspora Advisory Group, whose members included Roy Bryce-Laporte, James Early, Leonard Goines, Pearl Williams Jones, Worth Long, Fela Sowande, A.B. Spellman, Ron Smith, Carol Maillard, and Jane Sapp. Major sponsors included the Governments of Trinidad and Tobago, Nigeria, and Ghana.

The 1974 program constituted a pilot for a multi-year series leading up to the Bicentennial Festival in 1976. Participants from the African Diaspora program were also featured at times on the Festival Stage and in the Children's Program.
label: Fieldworkers
content: James Early, Louise Robinson, Carol Maillard, Lyn Dyson
label: Participants
content: Music

Brothers Chorus, gospel chorus

Derrick Bunch, 1957-, bones & quill player, Yazoo City, Mississippi

Sam Chatmon, 1899-1983, blues guitarist, Hollandale, Mississippi

Contact Africa, children games

D.C. Black Repertory, dance

Leonard Goines Quintet, jazz quintet

Green School Dancerettes, games

Jackson Singers, gospel singers

Key West Junknoos (Charles Allen, 1945-, William Butler, 1917-, Kenneth Rahming, 1941-, Alvin L. Scott, Lee Whynis), junknoos Band

Eddie Knight, 1909-1992, sticks & bones player, Yazoo City, Mississippi

Jesse Mays, guitarist, Independence, Mississippi

Flora Molton, 1908-1990, street singer

Michele Murray, dance workshop

Rev. Leon Pinson, 1919-1998, gospel singer, Cleveland, Mississippi

Lonnie Lee Pitchford, 1955-1998, guitarist, Lexington, Mississippi

Mr. Rhythm, tap dancer

Rising Star Fife & Drum  -- Rising Star Fife & DrumNapoleon Strickland, 1919-2001, Como, MississippiBernice Turner, Senatobia, MississippiOtha Turner, 1909-2003, Senatobia, MississippiG.D. Young, Como, Mississippi

Shock Treatment, urban blues band

Silvertones (Tommy Dozier, 1904-1979, Mattie Lee Dozier, 1921-,), gospel group, Myrtle, Mississippi

Steel Unlimited, steel band

Sweet Honey in the Rock, quartet

Everett Townsend, 1920-1975, spiritual singer, Independence, Mississippi

Trinidad Steel Band, steel band

Trinidad Children Games, games

Washington, D. C. gospel ensembles

Wulomei (performing troupe from Ghana)

Nigerian performing troupes

Petit Valley Village Troupe, Trinidad and Tobago

Crafts

Juliet Amoah, Ghanaian food

Errol Bishop, Trinidad and Tobago food

Althea Coakley, basket weaver

Beatrice Coakley, basket weaver

Paul "Sonny" Diggs, arabber

Terry Evelyn, mask maker

George Ferrell, woodcarver

Charles Freeny, U.S. Black food

Anna Fuller, cosmetologist

Dancella Hillman, cosmetologist

JuJu, woodcarver & metalworker

Walter M. Kelley, arabber

Ardell Lee, fishnet maker

Wilson Lee, Jr., woodcarver, Greenville, Mississippi

Elliot Manette, steel drum maker

Lee Nabors, 1916-1997, chair maker, Oklona, Mississippi

Rufus Pinckney, basket weaver

Joseph Ernest Smith, woodcarver, Lexington, Mississippi

Nigerian artisans

Ghanaian artisans

Trinidad and Tobago artisans
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
setName: label: See more items in
content: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 1974 Festival of American Folklife
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
identifier: label: Identifier
content: CFCH.SFF.1974, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials