Giving Voice: The Power of Words in African American Culture
odd: label: Introduction
content: The 2009 Festival program Giving Voice, presented by the National Museum of African American History and Culture, showcased the many oral traditions and verbal arts that hold a special place in African American folk culture. Giving Voice focused on the word power and word play that shape, define, and transform human experience. These cultural expressions represent a living legacy for black Americans and ultimately for all Americans. Through the deep, rich strains of African American oral traditions, the Festival program explored and displayed the vital connections between the power of words in African American folklife and the attributes of American culture itself.

Giving Voice created a learning experience that provided audiences with a better understanding of the everyday language and expression inherent in African American folklife. For instance, Festival visitors were invited into simulated social sites and gathering places where African Americans traditionally have felt free to talk to one another beyond the gaze and financial control, or below the radar, of racial others. Settings such as restaurants and home kitchens, churches and meeting halls, playgrounds and street corners, barbershops and beauty parlors, community radio stations and the "soapbox" - recreated on the National Mall - provided a living context for demonstrating the power of words to shape the daily experiences of African Americans.

With this Festival program, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture demonstrated its commitment to documenting and preserving the oral expressions of a people whose voices were muzzled, who were denied the opportunity to read and to write, and whose speeches and oratory often did not survive. A people's culture is inexorably linked to its language, and by helping to raise public awareness of African American linguistic creativity, the Museum highlighted a major aspect of black culture. In the process, the Museum moved closer to its goals of helping all Americans to learn more about African American history and culture, and to understand and appreciate how this history and culture provide a powerful lens for understanding what it truly means to be an American.

James Alexander Robinson was Curator, and Dianne Green was Program Coordinator. Diana Baird N'Diaye and Esther J. Washington were Curatorial Advisors for Children's Culture; John W. Davis II was Curatorial Advisor for Community Radio; Roland Freeman was Curatorial Consultant for Photography; Kenny Carroll was Curatorial Consultant for Poetry; and Tony Smalls was Curatorial Consultant for Drama.

The program was produced in partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.
label: Presenters
content: Deborah Asante, Carmen Ashhurst, Jade Banks, Kenny Carroll, Lorne Cress Love, James Counts Early, Anthony Gittens, E. Ethelbert Miller, Bob Sumner, Eleanor Traylor, Esther J. Washington
label: Participants
content: Children's and Youth Culture

Asante Children's Theatre, Indianapolis, Indiana

Schroeder Cherry, 1954-, Baltimore, Maryland

The Dr. Beverly Robinson Community Folk Culture Program, Bronx, New York

Hot Topic All Stars, Alexandria, Virginia

Ella Jenkins, Chicago, Illinois

Humor

James Hannah, 1968-, Coppell, Texas

Royale Watkins, Encino, California

Poetry

Toni Blackman, Brooklyn, New York

Kenny Carroll, Washington, D.C.

Thomas Sayers Ellis, 1963-, Brooklyn, New York

Tonya Matthews, 1974-, Cincinnati, Ohio

Sonia Sanchez, 1934-, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Radio

WPFW, Washington, D.C.

Storytelling

Charlotte Blake-Alston, 1948-, Landsdowne, Pennsylvania

Victoria Burnett, 1951-, San Juan Capistrano, California

Len Cabral, 1948-, Cranston, Rhode Island

Mitchell G. Capel, 1955-, Spring Lake, North Carolina

Diane Ferlatte, Oakland, California

Hugh "Brother Blue" Hill, 1921-, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Joni L. Jones, 1955-, Austin, Texas

Baba Jamal Koram, 1949-, Alexandria, Virginia

Onawumi Jean Moss, 1936-, Amherst, Massachusetts

Tejumola Ologboni, Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Dylan Pritchett, 1959-, Williamsburg, Virginia

Sankofa, 1930-, Rochester, New York

Valerie Tutson, 1966-, Providence, Rhode Island

Theater

Holly Bass, 1971-, Washington, D.C.

Roger Guenveur Smith, 1955-, Los Angeles, California

Anu Yadav, 1977-, Washington, D.C.
name: label: Collection Creator
content: Smithsonian Institution. Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage
setName: label: See more items in
content: Smithsonian Folklife Festival records: 2009 Smithsonian Folklife Festival
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Ralph Rinzler Folklife Archives and Collections
identifier: label: Identifier
content: CFCH.SFF.2009, Series 3
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials