Afram

UNTIL last Sunday, my worst experience at Afram was getting lost in the huge crowd when I was about 7 years old. After shedding a bucket of tears, I was reunited with my family at the lost and found van. It was a happy ending.Conversely, my visit to Afram at Oriole Park at Camden Yards last Sunday -- at the age of 23 -- ended with me receiving treatment in the first-aid van for cuts and bruises after being trampled by terrified concert goers who allegedly heard gunshots.Sunday night's incident happened at the closing concert of the open-air, three-day event, which is held annually to celebrate African and African-American culture.

Lloyd Campbell "Mitch" Mitchner, who had been director of Baltimore's Urban Services Agency during the mayoral administration of Kurt L. Schmoke and later headed AFRAM, the African-American cultural festival, died July 16 of lung cancer at Northwest Hospital. He was 84. "I've known Lloyd since I was a teenager when he and my mother and Barbara Mikulski were social workers for the Baltimore City Department of Social Services," said Mr. Schmoke, former dean of the Howard University Law School, who is now university vice president and general counsel.

It's been 20 years since AFRAM began as a showcase for the African-American community and grew into a festival with top-name performing artists, hundreds of vendors and an expo that donates scholarships to students.The history of AFRAM, which celebrates African-American food, music, arts and crafts, includes performances by Regina Belle, the Delfonics and Atlantic Starr and an appearance by Grammy Award-winner and Maryland native Toni Braxton, who served as grand marshal of the AFRAM parade in 1994.

Lineups have changed, musical tastes have changed. But Tony! Toni! Tone! has turned 21, and founding member D'wayne Wiggins thinks that's pretty cool -- and maybe a little amazing. "Toby! Toni! Tone! is legal, 21 years old," Wiggins says with a laugh over the phone from Oakland, Calif., where he, a brother and a cousin founded the R&B trio in 1988. "We are like the soul version of the Rolling Stones." This weekend, the Tonys, as Wiggins refers to the group in shorthand, will be playing at Baltimore's eighth annual African-American Heritage Festival, part of a steady stream of musical talent that will also include Anita Baker, Teena Marie, En Vogue, Raheem DeVaughn, Terence Blanchard, Eric Roberson, Fertile Ground and Laura Izabor.

ARMS twist and twirl around bodies, slender fingers curl around young, bright faces as they Vogue in imitation of Madonna, the pop queen whose song blares in the background of this rehearsal.It's the week of the Afram festival, and the half-dozen or so girls who'll be performing are stepping over each other's toes, forgetting places and movements, crunched up together and looking around for guidance. It's the small rehearsal space in Johnston Square Youth Development Center at Ensor and Chase streets that cramps their style.

The board of directors of the nonprofit organization that runs AFRAM, Baltimore's largest ethnic festival, has dismissed its acting executive director and accountant after the festival ended up with poor attendance and overdue bills, according to the former employees.Norman Ross, one of the founders of AFRAM 23 years ago, is the second executive director to leave the group in several months.His departure occurs after AFRAM attracted about 11,000 paid visitors over three days in August, according to officials at Pimlico Race Course in West Baltimore, where the festival was held.

Jazz, gospel and soul music. Crafts tables and food booths. Storytelling and poetry readings. And ... Dot.com Village. Welcome to AFRAM in the year 2000, the cusp of the millennium, the age of the Internet. Dot.com Village is one of six theme villages at the three-day celebration of African-American heritage that begins tomorrow at the Pimlico Race Course infield. It will feature a cluster of 20 exhibitors offering computer hardware and software products, hands-on computer training, workshops, virtual-reality tours and opportunities to surf the Web. AFRAM's promoters expect Dot.com Village to be a major attraction at the 24th annual event and, more important, to serve as a bridge over the so-called "digital divide," the gap between those with computer and Internet access and those without.

Red, yellow and green hats, African dolls and T-shirts featuring a black Bart Simpson are among the items for sale at AFRAM Expo '91, held this weekend at Festival Hall.People who attended the festival yesterday said products with African-American themes sometimes are hard to come by, but they were in abundant supply at AFRAM, a celebration of black culture and heritage. "The black people here, they really like the African stuff," said Yacine Ba, a native of Senegal, who was selling hand-made dolls and jewelry.

Cleveland Brister was working for Baltimore's Model Cities program back in 1970 when he received an unusual request in connection with Soul Festival, a fledgling event that was being held at Hopkins Plaza."

A 31-year old woman in a crowd leaving the AFRAM Expo '93 late Friday was shot accidentally in the chest as she passed two men who were arguing, police said.Sandra Anderson of the 4000 block of Dudley Ave. in Northeast Baltimore happened to be next to a man who fired a gun at another man just before 10 p.m. Friday in the 200 block of S. Howard St., investigators said.She was shot in the left side of the chest and admitted to the Maryland Shock Trauma Center, where she was in serious but stable condition yesterday.

Say "A-frame" and certain words leap to mind, such as gingerbread, yodeling and tacky. Now, shelve the Alpine myth. The unfortunate blight of bric-a-brac that plagued the country's ski resorts decades ago is only part of the story. The A-frame's role in American architectural history extends well beyond its mistaken reputation as a Swiss chalet knockoff. "For every A-frame with a yodeling porch, there was a subtler design that successfully integrated the traditional triangular form with contemporary features," writes Chad Randl in A-frame (Princeton Architectural Press, 2004, $21.95)

With the memory of last year's success still fresh in their minds, African American Heritage Festival organizers are looking forward to another weekend of history, music and family activities. "I am excited because we have the opportunity to expand on what our vision is for the festival," said steering committee member Darlene McCain. The second annual festival will focus even more attention on education and history, McCain added. Festival spokesman John C. White said the committee almost doubled the size of the celebration's educational section.

Sitting in the shade yesterday with french fries in his hands, music in his ears and a smile on his face, Robert Willis proclaimed the first African-American Heritage Festival worth the wait. The West Baltimore resident had been to AFRAM, its predecessor. He watched attendance plummet to 10,000, watched it move to places as inauspicious as a spot under Interstate 83. But this new three-day festival is front-and-center at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Friday night, according to police estimates, 125,000 people stopped in for the music, food and exhibits - more visitors in one evening than AFRAM ever had in an entire weekend.

With just three weeks to go, the curtains are parting a bit on the African-American Heritage Festival. For weeks, organizers have tried to keep plans under wraps - feeding speculation among city officials and sponsors that the event was in trouble. But festival organizers announced Friday that they have booked top musical performers for the event, which will be held June 21 to 23 at Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Festival officials said they just wanted to build excitement about the acts: R&B singer/songwriter Erykah Badu, soul music singer/songwriter Brian McKnight and R&B group Frankie Beverly and Maze.

Top national recording artists are expected at the African-American Heritage Festival from June 21 to 23 - but don't pick up the newspaper or tune in to your local radio stations for a list of acts just yet. Festival organizers hope to announce the lineup next week, but won't even hint at who may be coming or discuss the festival's budget. "We are going to have national, regional and local talent all three days," David Geller, co-chairman of the entertainment committee, said yesterday.

"Come See Who We Are" is the motto chosen for the new African-American Heritage Festival scheduled for three days in June at Camden Yards, Mayor Martin O'Malley and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume announced yesterday. The concept and scope is intended as a departure from the former AFRAM festival, an uneven affair held at various venues from 1976 to 2000, most recently at Pimlico. In recasting the festival for 2002, Mfume and O'Malley said they believed that the past had to be revisited in a fresh way that captures the minds and imaginations of young people.

It's baaaccckkk!AFRAM, the annual celebration of African American culture returns to Festival Hall this weekend with cultural exhibits, arts and crafts and a variety of food.The theme of the 16th annual Showcase of Nations African-American Exposition, sponsored by the Urban Development Foundation and 14 private corporations, is "The African-American Woman: An Emerging Force," says Dorothy Jordan, spokeswoman for AFRAM."This is 'The Year of the Woman,' " Ms. Jordan says. Politically and in the business world, "women are moving into more and more responsible positions," she says.

Attending Baltimore's AFRAM festival yesterday proved to be a learning experience for Gloria Shaw."I came just to see different things going on and possibly learn something," the 53-year-old Harrisburg, Pa., resident said. "When were being raised, our parents didn't tell us [about our cultural heritage]."Ms. Shaw is one of thousands of people who attended AFRAM Expo '94, which celebrates the cultural heritage of African-Americans with arts, crafts, food, music and games from around the world.

In just six months, one of Baltimore's most popular traditions will resume, reinvigorated with a new name and location -- plus the backing of the Ravens' most valuable player. The African-American Heritage Festival will be held in the city June 21 to 23 at Camden Yards, a location intended to attract more people than Pimlico, where its former incarnation, the AFRAM festival, was held in 1999 and last year. Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, MVP of last year's Super Bowl, has signed on as the festival's celebrity representative.

The last thing Mayor Martin O'Malley wanted was for the city's best-known African-American festival to fizzle under his administration. So when he saw that AFRAM, a 24-year cultural staple, was saddled with debt and lumbering toward another bad year, O'Malley called NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, whose loyalty to Baltimore runs deeper than the breadth of his responsibilities. "I think I'm becoming the mayor's go-to person on a lot of issues," Mfume said in a recent interview with editors and reporters at The Sun. "And I said to him, `Mr. Mayor, you know I need one more thing to do like I need a hole in the head.