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The Oakland Black-Eyed Pea Festival (BEPF), a celebration of African American traditional music, food and art, will return to its roots through a partnership with Farms to Grow, Inc., the hosts of the Freedom Farmers’ Market on Sept. 12.
Now in its 11th year, the downsized festival sponsored by Omnira Institute will open with presentations by Wakan Wiya Two-Spirit Drum, a drum invocation for the ancestors by Awon Ohun Omnira, a performance by Andre Thierry of Accordion Soul, and most importantly, fresh black-eyed peas for sale.
Freedom Farmers’ Market (FFM) vendors sell produce and promote wellness and nutrition through organic herbs, massage, and other gift items from July through October on the second and fourth Saturdays at a dozen canopies in the last block of Shattuck Avenue, where it merges with Telegraph Avenue.
Over the years, FFM vendors have appeared at the Black-Eyed Pea Festival and vice versa, so this collaboration is like a family reunion.
Farms to Grow, Inc. Executive Director Elaine Smith said the collaboration with Omnira Institute was an opportunity she couldn’t refuse. “People talk about community and unity for Black people – I always want to be an example of what has to be done,” Smith said. “Anyway that we can partner with our people, we want to do that.”
Charlotte Jackson, a longtime vendor with FFM and the festival, had been known for her jellies, jams and chow-chow through Pots n’ Jars. For the last several years, she hasn’t been able to find a commercial kitchen she can afford, so she began selling vegan soap and skin care products that her son and his partner produce under the name Lather and More.
“It’s been a blessing,” said Jackson, who will tell her customers that although they can order the wares from the website, there’s no such thing as ‘smell-avision.” From her table, she encourages passers-by to take a sniff of the soaps, then directs them to the nearby booths.
Jackson functions as a sort of ‘town crier’ of ‘buying Black,’ never failing to encourage Black people to take their mule or Pontiac or Chevrolet and steer it toward Black businesses like Mandela Market.
Likewise, the Black-Eyed Pea Festival was established to encourage Black entrepreneurship by providing a space for Black creatives to sell their handmade or original designs and products without competing with commercially produced goods.
It also served as a way to both commemorate and invigorate memory of the once-thriving Black community of West/North Oakland before it was divided by highways, BART, and then ravaged by the crack cocaine epidemic.
“For one day, I wanted to invoke the success of that community through the sound of music, the taste of soul food and black-eyed peas and the beauty of our art,” Ravernell said.
Once deciding to follow through on the idea of holding a festival celebrating African American traditions, Ravernell settled on using the black-eyed pea as its symbol because of its pride of place in Black people’s consciousness on New Year’s Day and because the peas were originally cultivated in Africa.
Learning that Fresno farmer Wil Scott, former president of the California African American Farmers Association, grew black-eyed peas as well as other legacy crops that are the foundation of a soul food menu, Ravernell was intent on ensuring Scott’s presence at the first festival in 2014. Whenever he could, and whenever the weather yielded a bountiful crop, Scott would bring his black-eyed peas to the festival, shelled or on the pods.
Originally cultivated in Africa, the black-eyed pea is believed to have been brought to the U.S. hidden in the hair of African captives brought to the Western Hemisphere during the holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade.
Known to grow plentifully even in poor soil, the pea was associated with abundance in Africa and later, in the U.S., with good luck.
She also learned that black-eyed peas nourish poor soil, that they are a very good source of nutrition, and that they probably contributed to the longevity of the enslaved.
“I thought the black-eyed pea, its story and its significance for Black people made it a great symbol to represent Black culture,” she said. In spite of everything they endured, Black people emerged from slavery and Jim Crow as masters of making a lot from a little, creating a culture that would be emulated and imitated at home and abroad.
Feeling that many people know only the most recent iterations of Black music – Hip Hop and R&B – she created the festival to promote the music of earlier eras, which reflect the thoughts and feelings of Black people over time.
That’s why the festival highlights straight-ahead jazz, gospel, zydeco and the Second Line of the New Orleans jazz funeral.
“It’s not enough to remember,” Ravernell said. “We need to actively nourish the roots of our culture.”
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