Mark your calendars: History museum's annual African American Cultural Celebration is this month
One of the N.C. Museum of History's big annual events is coming up. The 18th annual African American Cultural Celebration, the state's official kickoff event for Black History Month, is 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Jan. 26.
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The festival features more than 75 musicians, storytellers, dancers, chefs, historians, playwrights, authors, artists and more. For kids, you'll find traditional African games, a head-wrapping demonstration, a cowrie-shell necklace-making activity and more. Admission and parking are free.
Some of the day's highlights, according to the downtown Raleigh museum, include:
- A dance tribute to artist Ernie Barnes and his painting Sugar Shack, featuring J. Ivy, poet, writer, voice-over artist, photographer, and NCCU Dance Group, facilitated by Nicole Oxendine.
- Music and dance groups that include 11-year-old Raleigh violinist Tyler Butler-Figueroa, jazz vocalist Frankie Alexander, the Chicago-style step group Capital City Steppers, and the spoken word artist Robin Mills, among others.
- Hands-on activities that include designing a family story stick, making and mailing a memory card, crafting a cowrie-shell necklace, creating a doctor's head mirror with staff from the Pope House Museum in Raleigh, and taking a spin on the Wheel of History to test your knowledge.
- Performances from Lollipop and Mop Top, the Hip-Hop Scientist, the Jonkonnu drummers of Tryon Palace.
- Meet and greets with members of the Eugene Coard drag-racing team, who will talk about their experiences on and off the track.
The museum also has a couple of exhibits related to Black History Month.
On display in the lobby is a copy of the Green Book, which has been in the headlines recently thanks to the acclaimed movie "Green Book." The annual travel guide helped African Americans navigate segregation while on the road. It will be on display through Feb. 28.
On Jan. 25, the museum also will open Freedom! A Promise Disrupted. The exhibit, according to the museum, explores the triumphs and struggles of North Carolina’s Reconstruction era when formerly enslaved men, women, and children—as well as many nonwhite citizens—set out to claim the rights and possibilities of new post–Civil War freedoms, but faced major hurdles because of a backlash of racism and terrorism.
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