The second annual Laney Walker Bethlehem Heritage Festival kicked off at Dyess Park late Saturday morning.
The free public event honors the Laney Walker-Bethlehem district, a historically predominantly African American neighborhood in the Garden City, and is held in tandem with the Housing and Community Development Department’s revitalization project for the area.
“It’s a celebration of the many yellow brick roads that have been passed forth even during revitalization,” said Augusta Housing and Community Development Director Hawthorne Welcher Jr. “Everybody knows about James Brown, or Lucy Laney; but what about your C.T. Walkers? What about your Silas X. Floyds? What about your T.W. Joseys? What about your Dr. Scipio Johnsons?”
Housing and Development partnered with Garden City Jazz to organize the inaugural festival. The department’s project to renew the area, rehabilitating homes and building new developments, was part of the impetus for launching the event, said Karen Gordon of Garden City Jazz.
“With a lot of that development and change, you see a lot of new faces, and you see some old faces too,” Gordon said. “What they wanted to do was have a celebration of community, to bring together the old and the new people, places and things, and celebrate the work that the city and its partners are doing, but also, mainly, to celebrate the people.”
Approximately 500 attended the first festival. Gordon estimates this year’s turnout will be between 700 and 1,000.
Though the setup was not as spread out as last year, all of the mainstays returned. Kids were once again able to enjoy the petting zoo and inflatables. Vendor tents and food trucks bivouacked around the park. Mayor-elect Garnett Johnson could even be found giving away free bags of sweet potatoes—as he had done at the festival last year while on the campaign.
Almost all of the guests performing on the main stage—such as spoken word artist Is0lated Beauty, violinist Javonne Jones, and the Brownstown Gritty, featuring Brotha Trav and Sista La—were local artists. The exception was Columbia, S.C. band The Partly Cloudy.
“We were very intentional about seeking out talent from the Laney Walker Bethlehem neighborhood,” said Gordon. “Whether they live there now, or lived there in the past, or their parents grew up in an area, or they attended a church or a school that is in the neighborhood.”
A new addition to the even was the medical village, with the Department of Public Health, Oak Street Health and the Medical Associates Plus offering health screenings and information to the attending public.
Expressing gratitude to the mayor and the city administration for “allowing the Housing and Development Department to be at the center of this,” Welcher underscored the importance of partnerships in the 13-year project to revitalize the Laney Walker Bethlehem area, as demonstrated in the Heritage Festival with the presence of artists, business people, community leaders, support services and officials.
“This is the impact; this shows you that this is a staple, not a one-off,” said Welcher. “This shows you that at the end of the day, the Laney Walker Bethlehem neighborhood is synonymous with, is equal to, is parallel to any other neighborhood in Augusta Richmond County or the CSRA.”
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter covering business for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
