Afro Legacy Fest celebrates community and culture

AFRO LEGACY FEST

Afro Legacy Fest, a showcase of culture, history and community across the diaspora, is Feb. 6-8 in Charlotte.

The annual Afro Legacy Fest returns Feb. 6-8, bringing together the African diaspora to celebrate culture, history, and community. The three-day showcase starts with an opening celebration Feb. 6 from 6:30-11 p.m. at the VAPA Center.

Panels and cultural performances will take place Feb. 7 at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture from 12-5 p.m., followed by a potluck, meet and greet and community conversations at Historic Rosedale Feb. 8 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Co-founders Keudis and Milagros Sanchez created a space for members of the African diaspora representing 11 countries to celebrate in 2024. The idea started in Milagros’ classroom, where she was a cultural ambassador for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. She was invited to share with students her traditions and culture as an Afro-indigenous woman, where she learned that she and her husband, who was also raised in an Afro-indigenous household, wanted to create something bigger.

“We were amazed to find out stories and histories that most of my students didn’t know, and I say, if they don't know it, maybe their communities don’t know it, their parents, their siblings,” Milagros said.

The Sanchez family wanted people from African communities to talk about their ancestors, what they eat, dances and how they celebrate, which led to the festival.

“We started to work to create, building connections, harmony between Afro-descendant cultures, checking all the similarities, to create this empathy, to unify the brothers, like brothers that we are,” Keudis said. “The Afro-descendant communities, we are the same, we came from the same family, the same background, our ancestors arrived to this continent, the whole Caribbean, and the American continent, south through north, and that was our vision.”

The festival’s slogan this year is “Unity in Community,” which is about fostering understanding between Afro-descendant families.

“If you know more about me and I know more about you, I can better support you, I can create spaces for you, I can amplify your voice if I have the resources,” Milagros said. “Then when we do this in unity, we can share love through different ways.”

This festival is more than a party, but a moment to spread a positive message and appreciate other cultures through highlighting marginalized groups.

“It is really important to be together, especially in these times in which culture, arts, music, the aesthetic part of what we do needs to be preserved and acknowledged,” Milagros said. “We already know what's going on and we know sometimes it’s not beautiful, but we have the power and we have the resources and we have the spaces.”

Afro Legacy Fest is rooted in understanding identity and knowing where you come from to better understand where you’re going.

“If we learn more about our background, we create this empathy, this brotherhood, this family union as an Afro-descendant,” Keudis said. “It doesn’t matter the language; it's just the background we have. History helps us to grow up more powerful, to reclaim our spaces.”

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