My house, as you all know, is located in an area of town that is (aside from yours truly) essentially all black. This area has been traditionally all black since the founding of the city in the late 1800s. About two blocks from my house is Oak Street. Oak Street was once the thriving main street of the African-American community of Waycross, with theaters, restaurants, stores, etc. Oak Street, sadly, went the way of the rest of downtown Waycross, and while central downtown is doing its best at a revival, Oak Street is not. Currently, Oak Street has little more than two bars and a bunch of boarded up buildings. Recently, I've seen these signs springing up across the city:
Think The Unthinkable? What a terrible slogan! How could I *not* go, in an attempt to see what they could possibly mean by this? Around noon today, my mom, aunt and I walked from my house down to Oak Street. I must say there was nothing "unthinkable" about the festival. In fact, there wasn't much of anything, really. There were many, many food booths, selling barbecue sandwiches, fried fish and desserts. There were also a couple of craft booths (and by a couple, I mean two) and one mediocre band. Sigh. At least the food was yummy. I got very few photos, simply because I hate taking photos of people in general, and as the obvious minority at this event, I felt even stranger about doing so.
This building is the old Carver Theater from Oak Street's heyday.
This is what it was like, back in the day.
2 comments:
That's too bad. I love local street festivals. Are they working on improving the area?
Melissa
They really aren't at all. The city has put a lot of money into central downtown, but it doesn't seem as though any money has been put into Oak Street at all. I wish they would - it's close enough to my street if it developed my neighborhood might become less scary.
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