Florida Pan African Bookfest and Cultural Conference

How did the Bookfest come about?

Provided By Dinizulu Gene Tinnie

The need for community Black cultural festivals go back at least to the Black Consciousness Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Several cities around the nation launched celebrations, as the African World in general, and African America in particular were rediscovering long lost cultural heritage that had been lost, stolen or strayed.

The Roots

Brooklyn, NY, and Atlanta, GA, for example, became famous for festivals that attracted interest from far beyond their local communities.

In Florida, and in the years since then, several strong cultural festivals took root, most notably the Harambee Festival in Tallahassee, the Zora Festival in Eatonville, and the Festival of Afro Arts in West Palm Beach.

It was remarkable that the state's largest city, Miami, had nothing to compare although the annual Orange Blossom Classic Parade, and later, the Bahamas Goombay Festival in Coconut Grove, became well-established major celebrations, but neither was truly cultural in the same sense.

This would change in 1982, when it was Miami's turn to host the Annual Meeting of the Southern Black Cultural Alliance (SBCA). On that occasion, a Liberty City Festival of the Arts was launched, which was combined with the Official Dedication of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard, with Martin Luther King, III in attendance.

That highly successful grassroots-organized event established the strong network that would make the first County-sponsored African American Caribbean Cultural Arts Conference in the fall of 1986 an even more resounding success.

It was clear that a firm foundation was laid for this to become an annual event.

The Caribbean Connection

By 1988, a permanent organization, the African American Caribbean Cultural Arts Commission, Inc. (AACCAC) was formed. The 1989 event sought to expand the audience for each of the disciplines - literature, visual art, drama, dance, and music, by hosting separate events in successive months that year. The literary component, in January, was dubbed the Pan African Bookfest, and, like it's predecessors, was highly successful.

As the most visible component of that year's program, it was chosen as the name for future events, even though they were all interdisciplinary and not focused on books alone.

Over the years, AACCAC has partnered with colleges and universities, public libraries, the Historical Museum of Southern Florida, and other organizations and entities to produce annual events around such diverse themes as "African and Native American Connections", The Pan African French Connection", "African Hispanic Connections", "The Global African Experience" (including the Pacific Islands), and "The Maroon Experience in the Americas" to name a few.

The Benefits of Synergy

On several occasions these programs benefited greatly, and brought benefits to a wider audience, through a partnership with the Broward County Libraries Division, Outreach Services Department, headed by Mrs. Tanya Simons-Oparah.
The sharing of programs also proved to be a much more efficient use of resources, as costs could be shred and more content added.

This year, this relationship has been made formal by making the Pan African Bookfest officially a regional South Florida event, with programs both in Miami and Thomas Memorial People's Art Exhibition, a perennial crowd pleaser. In Broward, the Bookfest very appropriately underscores the role of the new African-American Research Library and Cultural Center, which is not only a valuable regional resource, serving all of South Florida, but also a much-needed center of Pan African Studies.

This information was provided by Dinizulu Gene Tinnie, president of the African American Caribbean Cultural Arts Commission, Inc.

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