Africans are known for a lot of things, but people like Weller Johnson fear that the knowledge about the culture is fading. "Its important that we teach our young people about our culture because its a spiritual thing," says Johnson. "We took this as an opportunity to re-introduce the african drum to the african community and we thought that it would be good to bring it from a Christian perspective," says Assistant Pastor Johnnie Cordero. He says that its been a generational disconnect within the black community. "Its an old saying if people don't know where they came from they wont know where they are going," says Cordero. The festival has fun and games for the kids, music, and art. Codero says this festival is an attempt to reclaim the identity in the African American community. "There is no people that came here and gave up their culture, the Jews keeps his culture, the Rumanians, everyone who comes here recognizes their own culture, they still have their own performance they mix into the american mainstream but they always maintain their own culture." Organizers from the festival hope that this will stop a gernerational curse. "Chances are they become apart of it spiritually, emotionally, and physically, just being connected... its spiritual in nature," says Johnson. />
