City not to blame for festival’s failure
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Unity Fest came and then went quickly, leaving a trail of finger pointing in its wake.
Organizers have laid blame on many doorsteps, including city government and the citizens of Selma.
They say the town failed to “support” their musical event designed to bring all of Selma together.
We don’t buy it.
The
idea of a Unity Fest is a good one.
This town needs an event everyone can come together and support without bringing the baggage of the past along.
This town needs a Unity Fest, but it deserves a better one than the event that fizzled out Labor Day Weekend.
First of all, organizers of the event appeared before the Selma City Council on August 9, less than a month before the event itself.
It’s hard to organize a potluck supper in that kind of time, much less a three-day, 30-band music festival.
Originally, organizers asked to use Riverside Park, but at the suggestion of council members, they asked to use Bloch Park instead.
Council members asked that organizers provide more information before they lent their support.
Councilwoman Bennie Ruth Crenshaw specifically asked for more security information.
According to the council members at the next meeting, that requested information never came.
Too Tough Entertainment President Roosevelt Johnson cited a last-minute venue change from Bloch Park
to the Water Avenue Elks Lodge as a contributing factor to the demise of Unity Day.
We say when the entire event is brought to the council three weeks before it’s supposed to happen, the whole operation is last minute.
As for the venue change, it was the council that suggested Bloch Park in the first place.
All organizers had to do was provide a viable plan for keeping people safe.
“We had no support from Selma,” Johnson also said.
We say they didn’t deserve it.
Say what you will about Selma’s City Council and the way things are run, but they support as many events as possible to promote togetherness and harmony among Selma’s people when given proper notice.
The Defiant Run and the Library Centennial are just a couple of events that will use or have used city streets, facilities and have the support of city government.
There is one thing that we agree with Johnson about.
Unity Fest should continue.
Organized and promoted properly, it could do a great deal of good in Selma.
Music can be a great uniting force.
A three-day festival or music, food and celebrating would be a great thing for Selma. It could be a lot of fun.
But apparently helping Selma wasn’t what Unity Fest was about after all.
“We are starting to think about next year, but I don’t know if we can have it in the Selma market,” Johnson said. “We may have to do it in another place unless we can get the support from the community.”
The message is Selma needs unity, but unless they step up to the plate with some money, Unity Fest organizers will bridge the racial gap someplace else.
But if the event, which was billed as a salve for Selma’s racial wounds, isn’t about Selma, what was it about?
“I’m just still really disappointed that the city didn’t get behind us on this,” Johnson said. “A lot of money was lost.”
In the end, Unity Day died because of several factors, not the least of which was the organizers own lack of planning.