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The weekend activities began
with a prayer breakfast on Friday morning at Friendship
Baptist Church during which a number of religious leaders
offered prayers for various causes and six honorees were
presented with gifts and the thanks of the community.
This year’s honorees were Wilma
Brown, Pastor Cecil Jerome Graham, Harold Mosley, Brenda
Oliver, Pastor Patricia Sullivan and Arron Woods.
Brown, the first female elected
president of Toledo City Council, spent 12 years on the
Toledo Board of Education before being elected to City
Council, and has been involved with a number of community
organizations. Most notably, Brown, as a member of the
National Association of Negro Business and Professional
Women’s Clubs, Toledo Chapter, started the Debutante
Cotillion over 50 years ago and has guided it ever since,
raising thousands of scholarship dollars for hundreds of
participants.
Graham, pastor of True Vince
Missionary Baptist Church and a care coordinator with
Neighborhood Health Association, is also n interim host on
Sunday mornings on the Urban Beat program. He is the first
Toledo pastor to become certified as a community healthcare
worker and has initiated the Graham Project – a
collaboration with Compuware Detroit and City of Detroit
Youth Department; the True Vine STNA training program and a
community Health Care and Career Annual Event.
Mosley, a retired Toledo Police
Officer, is the president/CEO of American Water Guardian, a
public water theft detection and loss prevention service
company, having received a patent for his SmartBox
Technology, a water monitoring system that detects the theft
of water.
Oliver began her tenure as an
employee with the City of Toledo in 1988. In 1998, she
joined the Office of Affirmative Action/Contract Compliance
and in 2002 moved to the Department of Neighborhoods. She
retired from the city in 2018 but continues to share her
expertise in fundraising, recruitment, conflict resolution
and analysis and has been a member of the University of
Toledo Alumni Association, the NAACP Toledo Branch and the
Perry Burroughs Democratic Women’s Club.
Sullivan, a retired educator was
ordained a minister in 1998 and, after being an assistant to
Bishop Duane Tisdale at Friendship, became the pastor of New
Beginning Full Gospel Baptist Church in Mansfield, OH. She
is currently the Midwest Regional Director of Emerging
Churches of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship
International and Director of Protocol for the State of Ohio
Full Baptist Church Fellowship International.
Woods, a minister and elder at
Friendship Baptist, is the Steward of Jonathan’s
Administrative Service is LLP, a supernatural birthed
ministry designed to protect and transition - he
specializes in the development of for-profit and non-profit
entities with an emphasis on board development and training.
Friday’s prayer breakfast
featured worship songs by Karen Harris, an opening prayer by
Bishop Tisdale; a prayer for the city and leaders by Pastor
Jerry Boose of Second Baptist Church; a prayer for the
churches by Lady Lisa Key of Peoples Baptist Church; a
prayer for Toledo Urban Federal Credit Union by Bishop Larry
Mack of Greater Dreams Church; a prayer for the youth by
Pastor Matt Collins of New Breed Ministries; a prayer for
the festival by Pastor Robert Lyons of Greater St. Mary’s
MBC and a closing prayer by Pastor Jerry Birt of Glass City
Church.
Regina Mack served as the
mistress of ceremonies for Friday’s Prayer Breakfast.
This year’s Gospel Concert was
also held at Friendship Baptist on Friday evening. Andrew
Kinsey, an anchor with WTOL 11 News, served as the master of
ceremonies and the evening’s entertainers included Darius
Coleman, Debra Brock, the Friendship Baptist Church Music
Ministry, Tawann Gaston, Mother Boola Bomb Bay & the Boola
Bomb Bay Baptist Choir, the United Voices of United Vision
Baptist Church and Cynthia Valentine.
The African American Festival on
Saturday and Sunday was held, for the second year, at the
downtown SeaGate Center – which enabled attendees to escape
the oppressive Saturday heat and Sunday’s rainfall.
Saturday’s opening act featured
eight-year-old Gregory Buchanan, Jr. on the organ. The
youngster was followed by Lady K, Jay Rush Jennings, Bobby
G., The Overton Project. The Saturday night headliners were
Con Funk Shun.
In addition to the music, the
SeaGate Center was filled with local vendors who brought a
multitude of wares for the curious – clothing, art, jewelry
– along with a host of food vendors, such as Ruby’s Kitchen.
On Sunday, Angela Winbush,
Studio 329, Tim Cunningham, Chris Byrd & True Victory, along
with Jean Holden-Hanna and friends (including Tracee
Perryman, PhD) held forth on the music stage until the
headliners, The Zapp Band, took over to close out the
entertainment. By that time, the audience was packed and as
excited as an audience can be.
This 15th version of
the African American Festival and the thousands in
attendance, noted Toledo Urban Federal Credit Union CEO
Suzette Cowell, was a far cry from the humble beginnings in
2005. That first edition of the festival drew about 600
guests during a rain-soaked weekend.
However, the Festival is not
quite over. Due to the heat wave during the last week, the
annual parade was postponed and will be held on August 24,
along the usual Dorr Street route.
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