SEDALIA — Drop by Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum State Historic Site in Sedalia on Saturday, July 18, between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. to enjoy in its annual African American Heritage Day program. This free program will highlight African American history, music, dance and crafts through performances, storytelling, craft demonstrations and children’s activities.
Headliners at this outdoor event will include Josephus III, poet and host of the 2009 Reasons2Rhyme poetry series, and Boo Hanks, piedmont blues artist from Music Maker Relief Foundation. Other performers visitors can see and hear are Ohemanna, an African gospel choir from Durham, the Kuumbia African Dancers of Greensboro and traditional storyteller Fred Motley.
Two local, well-known children’s book authors will also present readings of their work. WFMY-TV anchorwoman Carol Andrews will read “The Giggle Wind” at 11:30 a.m., and Winston-Salem author, poet and songwriter Sonya Correll Cook will read “Quest for a Family Pet” at noon. Parents will have a chance to purchase signed copies of these books.
Kids will also have a chance to experience the “Around the World’s Traveling Art Trunk” from the African American Atelier (a Greensboro outreach visual arts program for children ages 5-16); see artifacts relating to African culture with the Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology; and visit a storytellers tent featuring the N.C. Association of Black Storytellers.
Heritage Day exhibitors will include the Afro American Historical and Genealogical Society, Living Life through Literacy, the N.C. Freedom Monument Project, the N.C. Black Repertory Company and the Music Maker Relief Foundation, a group dedicated to promoting and assisting the pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music.
Food vendors will also be on hand. This year the museum has invited many local artists and craftsmen to display and market their wares, which range from neckties and African mud cloth crafts to unique handcrafted jewelry by Urban Kween of Greensboro.
Visitors to Heritage Day will have the opportunity to see a special exhibit from the N.C. Museum of History and N.C. Central University. “Bearing Witness: Civil Rights Photographs of Alexander Rivera” displays pivotal moments in civil rights history and illustrates how Rivera’s work brought national attention to African Americans, including North Carolinians. His dynamic images and impassioned articles revealed truths about the movement that the mainstream media often ignored. This exhibit brings together 31 images and articles from Rivera’s career with some of the nation’s leading black newspapers.
During the Heritage Day activities, the museum staff will present guided tours of Canary Cottage, the home of Dr. Charlotte Hawkins Brown. The site’s visitor center and gift shop will be open.
Through presenting such programs as the African American Heritage Day, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum seeks to promote a sense of community. This was also a lifelong goal of Dr. Brown, who worked to help her students at Palmer Memorial Institute be the best they could be.
Dr. Brown first began teaching children in Sedalia in 1902. For 50 years after founding PMI, Dr. Brown labored unceasingly to educate young people, building what started out as a tiny academy into a renowned African American prep school.
PMI closed in 1971 but since the facility reopened as a state historic site in 1987, five former school buildings have been designated as official projects of Save America’s Treasures, a public-private partnership between the White House Millennium Council and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The museum’s mission is to preserve and interpret the history and legacy of Dr. Brown, PMI and African American education in North Carolina.
The state historic site is located on Hwy. 70 between Greensboro and Burlington, at 6136 Burlington Road; it is 10 miles east of Greensboro off I-85, exit 135. Groups of 10 or more are encouraged to make reservations in advance. Hours are Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m., and admission is free.
For information about the site or the African American Heritage Day program, visit http://www.chbrownmuseum.nchistoricsites.org, e-mail chb@ncdcr.gov or call (336) 449-4846.
Administered by the Division of State Historic Sites, the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum is part of the N.C. Department of Cultural Resources, the state agency dedicated to the promotion and protection of North Carolina’s arts, history and culture through such programs as “Treasure N.C. Culture.” For more information, visit www.ncculture.com.