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Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Gullah event starts Friday

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Gullah Festival returns for 23d year

gullah2 Beaufort, Tuesday, May 19, 2009. The annual Gullah Festival of South Carolina returns to Beaufort’s downtown Henry C. Chambers Waterfront Park and to other historical sites within Beaufort on Friday through Sunday for its 23d year.

The festival is always held on the weekend before Memorial Day, which falls this year on Monday, May 25. Founded by Mrs. Rosalie F. Pazant and four of her friends in 1986, the festival has gained national attention and awards including recognition by the SC House of Representatives, SC Senate and US Congress.

According to the festival’s web site, five women in the early 1970s “just together for fun, began a discussion about the ‘good old days’ of how our black community would celebrate ‘Decoration Day.’ Those women were Mrs. Rosalie Pazant, her daughters Charlotte Pazant Brown, Lolita Pazant Harris, and Reba Pazant Hunt and a family friend, Marlena McGhee. They threw around several names and finally came up with a name representative of the area. They decided to call our new venture ‘The Gullah Festival.’

“They wanted to make the festival have the ‘Decoration Day’ flavor but with much more. Those five women then seriously began planning some of the types of entertainment they would like to have. Once some major decisions were made about the purpose of the festival, Mrs. Pazant took the leadership role in making our dream a reality.

“The Gullah Festival is a non-alcoholic festival. It is family oriented and has become an excellent vacation spot for all types of reunion activities, community groups and friendly gatherings. Our festival will always have as one of its goals to educate. We educate in our pre-festival activities and we educate all during the festival through our selection of entertainment.

“The festival committee presents awards and donates to the community in a variety of ways. The festival activities include such entertainment as, jazz, blues, reggae, gospel, storytelling, dance, arts & crafts, food court, vendors market, educational forums, teen summits, beauty pageant, art shows, museum displays, dances and plays.”

Decoration Day is the original name for what is now known as Memorial Day. It is a U.S. federal holiday recognized officially by the U.S. Congress in 1967 but having its roots in numerous late-May state celebrations that grew up immediately after the Civil War to memorialize the dead soldiers of that war. The current holiday, always on the last Monday in May, is a remembrance of the fallen of all the wars in which U.S. soldiers have fought.

The “good old days” to which Mrs. Pazant referred were the days in late May in Beaufort in the years soon after World War II when Decoration Day was celebrated with colorful pageantry along Boundary Street in the vicinity of the entrance gate to the Beaufort National Cemetery. People from the surrounding area, especially from St. Helena Island and other island communities, came to town for parades, dances, fried chicken and lemonade. Buses brought celebrants from cities as far away as New York and Chicago, many of them family members and friends who had left the Lowcountry for better-paying jobs in the industrial factories of the Northeast and Midwest.

According to Wikipedia, “many people observe this holiday by visiting cemeteries and memorials. A national moment of remembrance takes place at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Another tradition is to fly the flag of the United States at half-staff from dawn until noon local time. Volunteers often place American flags on each gravesite at National Cemeteries. Many Americans also use Memorial Day to honor other family members who have died.

“Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars take donations for poppies in the days leading up to Memorial Day; the poppy’s significance to Memorial Day is the result of the John McCrae poem ‘In Flanders Fields.’

“In addition to remembrance, Memorial Day is also used as a time for picnics, barbecues, family gatherings, and sporting events. One of the longest-standing traditions is the running of the Indianapolis 500, which has been held in conjunction with Memorial Day since 1911.

“Some Americans view Memorial Day as the unofficial beginning of summer and Labor Day as the unofficial end of the season (with the 4th of July as the very hot middle).”

Photo: Official Gullah Festival web site, www.gullahfestival.org.

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