Hundreds attend Underground Railroad festival

by Chris Daponte

DRAYTON

As a seventh-generation descendent of escaped black slaves, Terry Mercury is fortunate and thankful he had a grandmother who ensured his family was well versed in its past.

“This is my history,” Mercury said at the Underground Railroad Music Festival in Drayton on Aug. 18.

As such, when longtime family friend and event organizer Diana Braithwaite asked him to emcee the event, Mercury jumped at the opportunity.

“This is not a job for me - this is a privilege,” Mercury told the Advertiser.

He said he was “overjoyed” with the experience, which included introducing each of the dozen acts to audience members at the event at Centennial Park in the northeast corner of the village.

In addition to Braithwaite and partner Chris Whiteley, performers included Curley Bridges, Melissa Adamson and the Weary Traveller, Donovan Locke, Miss Angel with Colin White, Harrison Kennedy, and Blackburn.

Braithwaite said there were at least several hundred people at the event at any given time, and she expected the total to reach upwards of 700.

“It’s been really wonderful,” she said about halfway through the program at the fourth annual event.

“It’s all good people that are coming out - it’s a great audience.”

The event moved from Glen Allan two years ago, but the plan is to keep it at the Drayton park in the future, said Braithwaite, herself a direct descendent of escaped American slaves who settled in the Queen’s Bush area that includes a portion of what is now Mapleton Township.

“I’ve got a lot of support from the local community. They’ve really taken pride in the event,” said Braithwaite.

In the past, she has referred to the festival as a family affair - in a way it still is, as her sister and cousin were serving food and she performed a song dedicated to her late father entitled  Scrap Metal Blues - but considering the festival’s increasing size and popularity, it has outgrown that designation.

“It’s a community event now,” she said, adding it is the only one of its kind in North America. “Every year it’s just getting better ... It’s gaining national and international recognition.”

Michelle Charles of the Ontario Black History Society thanked Braithwaite  for organizing an historical event featuring “great talent.” She presented the organizer with a shirt recognizing Aug. 1 as Emancipation Day.

Braithwaite noted there were over 20 descendents of escaped slaves at this year’s event, which, in addition to music that ranged from spirituals, country and blue grass to rock and blues, also included a presentation on the connection between Mennonites and the early black settlers in the area.

“My mother, who grew up in the area, always said how her father talked so highly of the Mennonites,” Braithwaite said. “So when we found out there was a connection, we asked Timothy Epp to talk about it.”

Epp, an associate professor of sociology at Redeemer University College in Ancaster,  said despite their obvious differences, local blacks and Mennonites did have some things in common, including settling on new and unfamiliar land and overcoming adversity.

He explained both groups helped each other, including lending seed and labour exchanges - even if it sometimes meant they were ostracized by their own church - and there is even some evidence of inter-marriage.

“They have mutually enriched each other,” Epp concluded of the two groups.

Such a concerted effort mirrors that required to put on the festival and, to a greater extent, the painstaking effort to organize and coordinate the clandestine route that brought escaped slaves from the U.S. to Canada, said Mercury.

“The history of the Underground Railroad was a collaborative effort between black and white,” he said. “This isn’t just black history, it’s our history. It’s Canadian history.”

Mercury looks forward to the day when black history is included as part of the regular school curriculum in Canada, rendering Black History Month each February unnecessary.

But he was encouraged by the number of young people in the crowd and helping to organize the Underground Railroad Music Festival.

“We should, as a community, jump in,” he said, noting the great sacrifices made by past generations to ensure their descendents had a good life.

“This is part of the return.”

August 24, 2012