UPCOMING EVENTS – MARION VOICES: FOLKLIFE + ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Summer 2024 Events:

Check back often for updates on Marion Voices busy slate of June 2024 programs — including our upcoming Marion Black Joy Summerfest 2024 (June 29th, 2024 || 12-4PM || MLK Park in Marion), & our Marion County Cultural Heritage Assets Mapping Project (CHAMP) sessions — scheduled throughout Marion County on weekends in June. Our Making It: Arts Livelihoods & Arts Economies in Marion County Artists’ Survey also opens on June 1st, & remains open for responses until 11:59PM on June 23rd — if you are a working artist or culture-keeper of any kind in Marion County, please help us out & record your response by then!

**Marion County CHAMP Sessions:** **Various Dates (Weekends in June); Refer to Schedule Above or at marionvoices.org/CHAMP**

**June 29th, 12-4PM:** Marion Black Joy Summerfest 2024 at MLK Park in Marion. Detailed event schedule available at marionvoices.org/MBJSF

Past Marion Voices Events:

THIS CHRISTMAS: BLACK MARION CELEBRATES — COMING SUNDAY, 12/20 from 4-6pm on ZOOM!

**JOIN US ON SATURDAY, JUNE 26th for MARION COUNTY’S *FIRST EVER* BLACK JOY SUMMERFEST!** The *Marion Voices* Folklife + Oral History Program’s Spring 2021 Community Co-Curation Cohort (Ms. Linda Sims, Pastor Jackie Peterson, Ms. Tara Dyer, Johnnie Jackson, Anthony Marks, Jr., Micah Walker, Primrose Igonor, Ms. Kathleen Clemons-Keller, Ms. Jessie Thompson, Mr. Mike Brewer, Jess Lamar Reece Holler) are thrilled to announce the culmination of *Marion Voices*‘ Spring 2021 Community Co-Curation Cycle — the first-ever **MARION BLACK JOY SUMMERFEST!** *MARION BLACK JOY SUMMERFEST* is a day-long event celebrating the radical heritage of Black joy as liberation & resistance in Marion County! Come join us at **Martin Luther King, Jr. Park** on Marion’s West Side on **June 26th, 2021** — one week after Juneteenth — **from 12-7P**M for a fun-filled, powerful festival celebrating the legacy of Black Joy in Marion County!

*Marion Voices*‘ first-ever ***MARION BLACK JOY SUMMERFEST*** will feature three pop-up exhibits/installations on ***BLACK LEISURE in MARION COUNTY, BLACK TRAVEL & VACATIONING in MARION COUNTY, & BLACK SUMMER TRADITIONS // FOLKLIFE in MARION COUNTY*** co-curated by the program team, alongside an amazing line-up of cultural & performing artists & musicians on our Cultural/Performing Arts Stage, narrative stages featuring live oral history interviews with Black tradition-bearers & memory-keepers in Marion County, line dancing demonstrations & workshops, card game tournaments (spades, dominos, bid whist, & corn-hole), & pop-up Black History & Genealogy Workshop + Digitization Days booth hosted by the **Marion County Historical Society**! Food will be available by purchase from beloved local Black-owned foodways businesses **Attaboy’s, Pop’n & Roll’n, & Katie Reece!** We’re also proud to be offering a ** FREE COVID-19 VACCINE CLINIC ** sponsored by **Black Heritage Council** + brought to us by **Marion Public Health**! If you have not yet been vaccinated & are seeking more information, this is the perfect opportunity to learn more about the vaccine & consider getting an on-site vaccination, conveniently located right in the middle of our day-long festival!

NOTE: COVID-19 is very much still present in our community, & Marion County’s vaccination rates are lower than the state average. As such, the event organizers request that all attendees — especially those who are not vaccinated — kindly wear masks & maintain social distance at our event to ensure the safety of everyone in our community. Thank you for your co-operation & understanding!

**MARION BLACK JOY SUMMERFEST 2021** is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of the **Wopat Community Fund** at the **Marion Community Foundation**, **Ohio Humanities**, the **Ohio History Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, United Way of North-Central Ohio,** & **Rotary Club of Marion**. We are so grateful for both our local & statewide sponsors for making *Marion Voices*‘ 2021 Community Co-Curation programming possible! *Thank you to our funders!*

This project has been made possible in part by a grant from the **Ohio History Connection’s History Fund**. The History Fund is supported exclusively by voluntary donations of Ohio income tax refunds, sales of Ohio History “mastodon” license plates, and designated gifts to the Ohio History Connection. **www.ohiohistory.org/historyfund**

**SAVE THE DATE!!!** The *Marion Voices* Folklife + Oral History Program is thrilled to announce the fruits of our **Fall 2020 Community Co-Curation “Pop-Up Exhibit Cycle,”**which commenced meeting weekly in September 2020 — a blow-out, Zoom-based two-hour folklife/cultural arts event celebrating + discussing the ethics & politics of **Marion County’s Black Holiday Foodways, Folklife, & Traditions**. Our event is currently slated to feature **six Marion County Black cultural artists, memory-keepers, & tradition-bearers**sharing history, memories, & demonstrations of holiday folklife genres ranging from material culture, dress, adornment & home decoration to community Christmas pageants & celebrations to — you guessed it — everyone’s favorite folklife genre: **foodways**! We also will have a special presentation on the sync between Black Christmas celebrations & traditions and Kwanzaa, highlighting the role that syncretic Afro-Culturalist principles have long played in Black churches & community ethics in Marion County. **Please join us over Zoom on Sunday, December 20th, 2020 from 4-6pm** to celebrate Marion County’s Black holiday traditions! More details, a set-list, & Zoom information to follow shortly! **Watch this space** for an updated flyer in the week following Thanksgiving! We hope to see you there!

*This Christmas: Black Marion Celebrates* has been made possible, in part, through the generous support of Marion Voices’ 2020-2021 sponsors: the Wopat Community Fund at the Marion Community Foundation; Ohio Humanities; the Ohio History Fund at the Ohio History Connection; United Way of North-Central Ohio’s Small Grants Program; and Rotary Club International of Marion County, Ohio. Thank you for making this important work possible!!! <3

Join us beginning on **Monday, September 28th, 2020** from **6-7pm** onMarion Voices’ Zoom channel for the **kickoff meeting** for our Fall 2020 *Black History Community Co-Curation Cycle*, supported by **Ohio Humanities,** the **Ohio History Fund**, and with local support from **United Way of North-Central Ohio**! We’ll be meeting **every Monday night (6-7pm) from 09/28 to 11/23 (Thanksgiving week)** to collectively plan, research, build, & launch a **pop-up community exhibit on Black history, life, cultural arts, & futures in Marion County**. The exact theme/focus & format for our pop-up exhibit will be determined by participants; so please join us to help launch this important & long-overdue work in partnership with the **Marion County Historical Society**. *Stipends are available to offset costs & time of attendance; please contact Jess if you’d like to receive one!* **Email: marionvoicesoralhistory at gmail dot com.** See you there!

Join us for our *Marion Voices* Fall Updates Open-House, where we’ll give updates + unveil the new products & program visions resulting from our 2019-2020 Ohio Arts Council ArtsNEXT Grant: including our *Marion Voices* Culture Keepers Roster/Artists’ Directory; and our *Marion Voices* Countywide Folklife Program + Cultural Heritage Tourism Strategic Plan! Come give your feedback on what *you’d* like to see to grow arts-based economies & mobilize cultural arts for racial justice in our Marion County, Ohio!

SUMMER 2020 EVENTS

F, 06/19, 5-6:30pm: MARION COUNTY JUNETEENTH 2020 LIVESTREAM CELEBRATION

Join us for Marion County’s 2020 Juneteenth Celebration, organized by the Peace & Freedom Committee & Lion Hearted Entertainments, and co-sponsored by the Marion Voices Folklife + Oral History Project at the Marion County Historical Society! Come commemorate Black freedom struggles past and ongoing as we celebrate Black cultural artists & tradition-bearers across Marion County with a series of moving performances & demonstrations, MC’d by Anthony Marks, Jr. (Lion Hearted Entertainments) & Johnnie L. Jackson (Marion Voices // Marion City Schools). Featuring Marion County or “Marion Made” Black cultural artists LaCosta Mayes, Ms. Harriet Sims, Ms. Jessie Thompson, TaJa McFly & House of Fly, Anthony Marks, Jr., and video submissions from around the community! Friday, June 19th, 2020: 5-6:30pm EST. Zoom link in flyer above; and also available streaming via FacebookLive at the Peace & Freedom Committee + Marion County Historical Society Facebook pages. Show up to recognize histories of Emancipation & freedom struggles & the ongoing work of Emancipation — towards a more just future, in Marion County, & beyond.

PAST EVENTS:

WINTER 2019

R, 12/19: MARION VOICES KICKOFF OPEN HOUSE

Join us on Thursday, December 19th from 3-9pm in the Auditorium at the Marion County Historical Society’s Heritage Hall for our Winter 2019 Marion Voices Kickoff Open-House. Informational presentations will be given at 4pm and 7pm; but feel free to drop by anytime!

The Marion Voices Folklife & Oral History project is a countywide oral history and folklife project focused on Black history, life and culture in Marion County, 1960s-present, and a sister countywide folklife survey focused on the traditional cultural arts of diverse Marion County cultural, ethnic, religious, and geographic communities. From 2019 to 2021, our project will culminate in a series of community co-curated pop-up exhibits, events, and a folklife festival series, amplifying the histories and stories of Marion’s incredible communities — focused, specifically, on the stories and cultural heritage of Marion’s Black, brown, immigrant/newcomer, and rural communities.

Join MCHS Executive Director Brandi Wilson, Project Director Jess Lamar Reece Holler, and Community Coordinator Johnnie Jackson for formal presentations on the project — and how to get involved! — starting at 4pm and again at 7pm; and stop in during the rest of our open house to discuss oral history, folklife, to get involved in our community-collaborative efforts, and help us identify who in your community you’d like to see documented for the project! You can even sign yourself up — we’ll be scheduling interviews for December and January! Our project launches with oral history interviews and a folklife survey in December 2019, following our kickoff. Marion Voices is generously supported by Ohio Humanities and the Ohio Arts Council.