We are a worldly community.
You can see just how worldly and diverse it is as the 47th International Folk Festival kicks off in earnest Saturday with the Parade of Nations, scheduled for 10 a.m. from the Market House toward Festival Park.
“Over a dozen floats with more than 1,200 marchers are expected,” Bob Pinson, president and chief executive officer for the hosting Arts Council of Fayetteville-Cumberland County, said Monday.
It’s a parade that will dazzle you, with representatives of El Centro Hispano, the Cumberland International Early College High School, and Azerbaijan, Belize, China, Colombia, Greece, India, Hawaii, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ghana, Cameroon, Grenada, Guyana, Honduras, Nigeria, Mexico, Trinidad, Tobago, Okinawa, Puerto Rico, Panama, Peru, Romania, and of course, the good old USA.
You get the idea.
It’s a smorgasbord of international culture and flavor.
Speaking of flavor, the park promenade will be akin to something like a restaurant row, where you can purchase authentic international cuisines from Belize, El Salvador, France, Ghana, Guyana, Hawaii, Honduras, Jamaica, Japan, Liberia, Mexico, Nigeria, Okinawa, Peru, Puerto Rico, Thailand and Venezuela.
You get the drift.
You will not go hungry at the International Folk Festival.
The Cool Spring Downtown District’s 4th Friday, with an IFF theme, actually serves as a prelude to the festival from 6-10 p.m. Friday, according to Pinson, where you will find vendors and live music along Hay Street and Ray Avenue.
“Tired of Amazon.com gifts,” Pinson said, “please come out and visit and shop local arts and crafts vendors, and support local art.”
There’s something for everybody — young and older — at the festival to include a children’s play area and new this year, the Fiestas en la Calle in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, which is celebrated from Sept. 15-Oct. 15. The Arts Council, according to a news release, has partnered with the Raleigh-based nonprofit, El Centro Hispano, to present an area filled with Latin American cuisines, music, performances and artisan vendors.
Some festival history
The festival is just what the late Martha Duell and the late Fayetteville City Councilwoman Mildred Evans envisioned it could be.
“They were so excited about it,” Fayetteville businessman John Malzone said Tuesday about the festival. “They said, ‘We want to have a Parade of Nations.’”
Malzone remembers 1978, and the festival’s beginning.
“The first year, we must have had, I think, 50 nations,” he said. “Nothing represents Fayetteville and Cumberland County better than the International Folk Festival, because it shows all of the different cultures of people that make up America, and God willing, into the future. America has always been a wonderful composition of different cultures that have come together and have learned to subordinate their own personal culture and history to embrace American history.”
Malzone remembers, too, when the festival was held after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, and there was discussion of canceling the festival that year, but organizers nevertheless moved forward despite uncertainty about staging large gatherings.
“We had everyone marching with their national flags, and the American flag,” he said. “That was the great point in the festival history. We believed in our country and the future of our country. It was a great parade and great day. We had 50,000 to 60,000 people.”
Epilogue
The International Folk Festival is almost here.
“Based on historical norms for IFF, we plan for 75,000 attendees,” Bob Pinson said about Friday and Saturday, which runs from 10 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. “We are not doing Sunday this year. Even with this change, it only reduces the total time by about an hour. The festival is explicitly designed as a unity event — one of the region’s longest-running cultural traditions, now in its 47th year, and this year compacts the main festival energy into Saturday for a high-impact day after the Friday arts reception. Of course, we’ll have strolling artists around the park, so you will never know what you may run into as you enjoy the food and arts and craft vendors.”
What it is, is a colorful smorgasbord of cultures and people who call Fayetteville and Cumberland County home.
Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.
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