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The African American Heritage Festival returns after an eight-year absence. The event will be held Saturday, July 24, from noon to 8 p.m. with a Gospel Fest on Sunday, July 25, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. along with a special presentation from a Frederick Douglas reenactor at 1 p.m. on Sunday. The festival will be held at The Railroaders Memorial Museum.
African American historian Harriett Gaston said that the festival was started to help promote something called The African American Heritage Project. This project was created originally to help record the stories of those African Americans who came to this area during what they called the Great Migration after WWI and then there was another Great Migration after WWII. These were African Americans who lived in the South. Companies and businesses like the Pennsylvania Railroad needed workers because the white men were fighting. These people ended up working for The Pennsylvania Railroad and those businesses that supported the PRR.
The festival was used to promote what The African American Heritage Project was trying to do, which was to gather those oral stories because that was how history was being shared. It wasn't written. People didn't think that it was important enough to write down.
The festival was created in 1994; 2014 was the last year for the festival. Paige Lightner, daughter of original festival founder William Lightner, wanted to bring the festival back. She has led the revival of the festival, which is supported by the NAACP of Blair County with Sheetz being a major contributor.
"I decided that we needed to bring it back in order to bring some unity back to the community," Lightner said. "We decided to partner with The Railroaders Memorial Museum because they have a lot of black history with the railroad as well as a lot of educational aspects."
There will be entertainment coming from Washington DC and Pittsburgh. "We are having a community walk tour during the actual festival, where the people can learn different things about our area and different black history that they did not know."
There will be a jazz funk band, which will be opening up the festival on Saturday. There will be a local showcase, which will feature any local talent that would like to perform. Then, there will be The African Drum Ensemble coming from Pittsburgh. They will be teaching African dancing and drumming to the attendees.
The Pennsoulvanians, which is a native Altoona group that started playing at the original African American Heritage Festival, will be headlining.
There will be a go-go band coming from Washington, D.C. They do a lot of popular music and kind of remix it. They will be headlining at 6 p.m.
Then, on Sunday, they will be having a complete Gospel Fest.
"We will have Gospel music and prayers for the community," Lightner said.
"I feel that if we educate ourselves about ethnicities and heritage, we should understand each other," Lightner said. "I feel that if we have something where we can show our heritage and culture, people will learn more about us. We can have more unity because we can understand each other better."
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