A celebration of culture, history, and community spirit echoed through the streets of Gainesville as the 45th annual 5th Avenue Arts Festival unfolded under the theme “Our Planet, Our Home.”
The theme of the event, held May 17-18, was a call to action rooted in care of the Earth and the historically Black neighborhood that has hosted the festival for nearly half a century.
The festival was born out of a need to showcase and preserve Black culture in a neighborhood once thriving with Black-owned businesses.
Today, while many of those businesses and longtime residents are gone, the festival remains a resilient reminder of a community’s voice and vision.
“I’m just really pleased that we’ve been here for 45 years,” said Nkwanda Jah, one of the festival’s founders and longtime organizer who is also executive director of the Cultural Arts Coalition, which sponsors the event. “When we started, there were many Black businesses in this community. This is a historically African-American community. The good news is that the festival is still here after 45 years. The bad news is that the people who lived here 45 years ago can’t afford to live in this community anymore.”
This year’s environmentally conscious theme was inspired by Jah’s deepening involvement in climate issues.
“I’ve been doing more environmental work in the last few years,” Jah said at the festival on Saturday. “So, I’ve been focused on how to get my community aware of what’s happening with climate change and global warming and how we need to be preparing for it.”
A performance of the late music icon Michael Jackson’s hit song “Man in the Mirror,” performed by a local youth dance group under the leadership of Expressive Song and Dance, invited the audience to reflect on their personal power in protecting the planet.
“Look at yourself. You do what you can do,” Jah said, summarizing the message.
One artist who embodied this year’s theme, Marvin Weeks, is a visual artist and muralist from Miami with roots in the Gullah Geechee culture.
His art, infused with natural materials like leaves and fibers, speaks to the land and the stories born from it, he said.
“I try to incorporate the stories of our people in my work — spirit, land, sea, the elements of life,” Weeks said. “It’s just a beautiful thing coming out, meeting people, talking, and connecting. It helps you learn more.”
For Weeks, finding the 5th Avenue Arts Festival was a spiritual and creative homecoming.
“I look for events centered around community,” he said. “That’s what this is about. I traveled from Miami to be a part of it, and I look forward to coming back.”
Among the dozens of vendors and cultural exhibitors was Yvette Clarke, a graduate of Edward Waters University and one of the original contributors to the Cultural Arts Coalition. Clarke has seen the festival evolve over decades and remain rooted.
“This is our livelihood,” Clarke said. “We’re just trying to keep our history alive. We’re just trying to keep it going so we can give it to our children and our grandchildren. I always say we’re rooted. So, we’re not going anywhere. Anywhere we are, there’s gonna be something like this.”
Despite changes in the neighborhood, the festival continues to be a living tribute to heritage, resilience and unity, Jah said.
Its organizers and participants say they are determined not just to celebrate their past but to build a sustainable future for the culture, community and planet.
“When you’re doing God’s work, you’re not going to fail,” Clarke said.
