2nd Street Festival takes over Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood

RICHMOND, Va. -- The 35th annual 2nd Street Festival takes over Richmond's Jackson Ward neighborhood the weekend of October 7-8.

"This festival came about to commemorate this area because, during the 1920s through the 40s, this was the only area in Richmond where African American performers and entertainers could perform and find lodging," Sharon Bassard, with Venture Richmond, said.

Talk Show host and honorary ambassador of Jackson Ward Gary Flowers said some of the national most acclaimed entertainers came through Second Street.

"Acts like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, a Richmond native Jackson Ward native, Sarah Vaughn, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, all came to Richmond and stayed right here," Flowers said.

Jackson Ward, with over 600 Black-owned businesses, insurance companies, and banks, was once known as the Harlem of the South.

"Long before there was Black Wall Street in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Durham, North Carolina, there was a Black Wall Street here in Jackson Ward," Flowers said. "It was where Black people turned to each other and not on each other."

It was also where one Richmond woman, Maggie Walker, became a powerhouse businesswoman. Walker was the first woman to charter a bank in the United States.

She also operated a newspaper, and a department store and was an advocate for women's rights.

Flowers said he was privileged to hear from his late mother about the "goings on" at Maggie Walker's corporate headquarters.

"There was a whole lot of hullabaloo going on across the street. That hullabaloo could have been Ida B. Wells, WEB DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune, Marcus Garvey, but to my mother as a little girl who was five or six years old, in 1929, she just wanted to skate," Flowers said.

Venture Richmond had to cancel the 2nd Street Festival in 2022 because of Hurricane Ian.

This year the team is ready with more than two dozen entertainers on three stages.

The two-day event on 2nd Street between Broad and Jackson features Jazz, R&B, and Gospel music, dance, vendors, a renaissance roll call parade, and much more.

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