MANCHESTER, NH – More than 20 years ago when organizers of the city’s long-standing Latino Festival combined forces with those who had launched an annual African-Caribbean Festival, they were actually shaping a future festival to break down barriers and bring more unity to a city vibrant with diversity.
Today, the We Are One festival is the evolution of what began decades ago, which is a celebration of the cultures and countries that gave birth to all of us. Through music, food and cultural affirmation, we can learn that our differences are what make us who we are, but it is our humanity that makes us one community.
Saturday’s We Are One festival, although shortened slightly by the threat of rain, went off without a hitch under blue skies at Veterans Park, and extended the message of unity and togetherness beyond cultural differences. The event was co-hosted by the NH Black Women Health Project and Manchester NAACP, and included other community partners on-site – Amoskeag Health, Delta Dental, NAMI-NH, Granite State Organizing Project-Youth Organizers United, Manchester Community Action Coalition and the YWCA.
A centerpiece of the festival was a unique exhibition of quilts handmade by members of the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ.
“Prayers in Thread: The Sacred Ally Quilt Ministry” is a series of 10 quilts depicting the last words spoken by George Floyd, creating a powerful statement from the faith community about racial and social justice, some of which were on display.
Kira Morehouse of Manchester, who volunteers for the UCC conference of churches, was there as an ambassador for the project, which will eventually be part of an exhibition at an art gallery in New York City.
“Everyone was feeling hopeless about what happened last summer,” Morehouse explained, and the quilt project was born from that sense of hopelessness, creating a visual expression of suffering by quilters from nine churches from across the state.
“There’s so much artistry that goes into the quilts,” said Morehouse, acknowledging the presence of Harriet Ward of Exeter, a master quilter from Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Brentwood-Kingston. Ward rolls in close with her wheelchair to point out the nuances of her quilt, its border of deep blacks, purples and blues rising into a heavenly lightness. The words “I can’t breathe” barely visible inlayed with translucent ribbon across the bottom.
Ward flips through her cell phone photo library to show her process, which included piecing together 1,380 two-inch squares of fabric.
“Originally I wanted to use 1,619 squares, for 1619 which was the year the first Africans were captured and brought to this country, but I couldn’t get it to form a quadrilateral,” said Ward, as much an artist as an engineer. “They landed in Port Comfort Viriginia, and the history books describe them as ‘some 20 and odd Negroes.’ They are nameless. August 30 will be the anniversary of that moment in time. A year later the Mayflower came and we know each and every one of their names.”
Ward looks up from her phone, punctuating the history lesson with her deep brown eyes.
Ward worked mostly in solitude in her church sanctuary during the pandemic. She used 44 different fabrics, “well, after 44 I lost count,” says Ward, who cut and laid out the fabric out so that the darkest squares graduated into the lightest shades, a technique that artistically represents the range of human complexion which “creates an infinity of inseparable shades,” Ward says.
It’s a type of impressionism that blurs the lines between the comforting practicality of a quilt and the symbolic representation of thousands of years of suffering – from a brown man named Jesus on the cross and enslaved Africans who were beaten, bruised and killed, to George Floyd and many others, whose lives have ended in violence. His murder last year has amplified the call for racial and social justice, a theme that aligns with the spirit of We Are One.
Festival organizers Shaunte Whitted and Sudi Lett were busy making the rounds to the various tents, seeing that everyone had what they needed. They say they are focused on the future of the festival and engaging the next generation in taking their place as community leaders.
Whitted’s daughter Amelia Payton, a pint-sized entrepreneur, had a table set up featuring her Faith Fashions line of T-shirts. Lett, who serves as Youth and Education Coordinator for Granite State Organizing Project, invited several high school students who are part of GSOP’s Y.O.U. program to help out with the event.
He said having the festival as scheduled was a win, given the forecast for an impending hurricane and the ongoing uncertainty of COVID.
“We didn’t want this to be a super-spreader event, so we organized it to have a ton of space in the open air, and it was a great event,” Lett said. “These students are some of the most civically engaged students in the country. They’re taking interest in local government, reaching out to the mayor and the governor with questions. They are learning every day about their community, and they are amazing.”
There were also free book bags stuffed with school supplies available for all the kids in attendance. Two food stations provided an abundance of ethnic dishes – Don Quijote Restaurant on Union Street has been participating in the annual festival for more than 20 years. And this year, there was a brand new restaurant introducing festival-goers to Tokoss, which specializes in Afro-Caribbean cuisine. They opened about five months ago at 1293 Elm Street, according to Denis Nugent who was overseeing the food tent.
