Decatur activist group holding city’s first Pan African Festival

A Decatur activist group will hold the city’s first Pan African Festival this weekend.

From 3 to 8 p.m. Saturday, the free event will highlight and celebrate culture rooted in people of African descent. The event will be hosted by the Beacon Hill Black Alliance for Human Rights, a local activist organization.

“Beacon Hill’s Pan African festival will be a celebration of the African diaspora and the economic achievements of its people uplifting Black entrepreneurs and small business owners while also featuring Black-led organizations organizing in the fight for liberation,” Fonta High, Beacon Hill co-chair, said in a news release.

The event will take place in Decatur Square, where a Confederate Obelisk stood for more than a century. The city took down the monument last summer amid the nationwide protests against racism and police brutality following George Floyd’s killing. A marker commemorating the arrest and release of Martin Luther King Jr. has since been erected in Decatur Square.

“A town square where a confederate monument once stood and the (Ku Klux) Klan would gather will be the site of our first ever Pan African Festival,” Mawulli Davis, an attorney and Beacon Hill co-chair, said in the release. “This will be a space of culture, love, and healing.”

The Pan African Festival will include musical performances by Mausiki Scales & The Common Ground Collective along with drumming, songs and dance by Giwayen Mata. Young Creators of the Black Man Lab will perform hip-hop and spoken word during the event, which will also feature food vendors, artists and speakers.