NEWS
By Nicole Fuller and Nicole Fuller,nicole.fuller@baltsun.com | October 2, 2008
Organizers of the annual Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival are assessing their finances and mulling the location of next year's celebration, after rain apparently contributed to a lackluster turnout this year for the event's return to downtown Annapolis. David Arthur, president of the board of directors for Kunta Kinte Celebration, said organizers will meet in the coming weeks to discuss fundraising strategies and the best format and venue for next year's festival. City officials approved a one-day permit for the festival, celebrated Saturday at City Dock, taking into account concerns from the business community over a perceived drop in customer traffic when organized events convene downtown.
NEWS
By Chris Guy and Chris Guy,Sun reporter | October 27, 2007
EASTON --More than three years after winning a bitter fight to place a statue of Talbot County's most illustrious native son - abolitionist Frederick Douglass - here on the courthouse lawn, the grass-roots group that is leading the drive has raised only about half the money it needs. The sculptor who was selected to create the statue complains that he doesn't have a contract in hand or a check to reimburse him for money he's spent on travel and designing models. "I've been working for three years and haven't made a nickel.
NEWS
By Mary Carole McCauley and Mary Carole McCauley,SUN REPORTER | June 3, 2007
Chris Haley's family tree has extra-strong Roots. In the Pulitzer Prize-winning book of the same title, his uncle Alex Haley traced the family history back to an African slave named Kunta Kinte -- and spawned a legend. The book later became a television mini-series (which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year) and one of the defining cultural events of the 1970s. Chris Haley has embraced his legacy -- he works for the Maryland State Archives and is a longtime trustee of the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation, which this year will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Kunta-Kinte Heritage Festival.
NEWS
October 4, 2006
Ivy Chisley looks at earrings during the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival at the Anne Arundel County Fairgrounds. At top right, Danielle Edwards, 5, dances on the shoulders of her father, Derrick Edwards, as they enjoy music and wait for food. Below, Jerome Hall of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry Association mans the group's Buffalo Soldiers exhibit. The festival honors Kunta Kinte, an African slave brought to Annapolis in the mid-1700s. An ancestor of author Alex Haley, he was featured prominently in Haley's book Roots.
NEWS
By Jamie Stiehm and Jamie Stiehm,SUN REPORTER | September 29, 2006
Throwing a party while mourning the host is the challenge faced this weekend by the friends and family of Leonard A. Blackshear, founder of the Kunta Kinte Heritage Festival. Blackshear, who also founded the Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation, died in March at age 62 of cancer. Tonight, the city of Annapolis will dedicate the story wall at the memorial to Kinte and Alex Haley at City Dock, monuments that Blackshear made a reality. The next morning, the 19th festival will open at the Anne Arundel County fairgrounds in Crownsville.
NEWS
September 24, 2006
On Sept. 29, 1767, a 17-year-old slave disembarked at City Dock in Annapolis after a brutal ocean voyage from West Africa. His name, Kunta Kinte, has taken on a legendary quality, but only after the efforts two centuries later of his descendant Alex Haley. Relying on his grandmother's memories - she was a family griot, or storyteller - Haley sought to memorialize Kinte's life in his international best-seller, Roots. According to Haley family history, Kinte was sold into slavery in a town called "Naplis."