On the second Sunday of June, Graduate Hospital, one among Philadelphia’s oldest traditionally Black neighborhoods, hosts one of many nation’s most expansive celebrations of Black and African tradition. Celebrating its fiftieth anniversary on Sunday, the Odunde Competition reworked 16 metropolis blocks into avenues of music, meals and custom steeped within the African and Caribbean diaspora.
Based in 1975 by Philadelphia neighborhood chief Lois Fernandez, the competition started as a one-block occasion supported by a $100 grant. At the moment, it attracts greater than 500,000 attendees yearly, and is probably the biggest African American road competition within the nation.
An ancestral imaginative and prescient born in Nigeria
Odunde — Yoruba for “the celebration has arrived” — was impressed by a pilgrimage Fernandez took to Nigeria, the place she witnessed a conventional celebration marking the brand new yr. Motivated to carry an analogous observance to her personal neighborhood, she launched the primary Odunde competition with a small crew and modest funding. The occasion has grown steadily over 5 a long time, in each measurement and significance.
The competition is now led by Fernandez’s daughter, Oshunbumi Fernandez-West, Odunde CEO, who has expanded its attain by means of the initiative ODUNDE365.
ODUNDE365 affords year-round cultural training and youth programming in Philadelphia. Simply this yr, Fernandez-West welcomed her oldest son, Adeniyi Ogundana, because the Odunde COO.
Invoking the goddess
The center of the Competition’s schedule is a sacred river ceremony, held annually at midday on Sunday. Contributors wearing white or conventional apparel collect at twenty third and South streets and stroll in a procession to the Schuylkill River. There they provide fruit, flowers, honey and truffles to Oshun, the Yoruba goddess of rivers, contemporary water, prosperity and love.
This ritual units the tone for the day and connects the competition to its West African roots. This procession has turn into one among Odunde’s most recognizable traditions.
Baba Akinkugbe Karade first participated within the procession in 1997 alongside Fernandez-West. Requested what Odunde meant to him, Karade mentioned that Odunde represented “a substantial amount of historical past, a continuation.”
Years and even a long time later, Karade is touched to see Odunde increasing to incorporate a 3rd era of management, with the naming of Ogundana as Odunde’s COO.
Echoing Karade’s sentiment in regards to the legacy of neighborhood and ancestry that unites this competition, Odunde attendee Kathy, who got here from Germantown along with her daughter Kara, goddaughter Aliyah and her mom Lola, initially from Jamaica, spoke of Odunde as “a remembrance of our tradition and the way it has modified.”
Kathy has been attending Odunde for a few years now, and she or he and her household particularly love seeing the handmade crafts and creativity that the competition shows.
Following the procession, Odunde floods the streets with performances, distributors, and meals representing African and diasporic cultures.
A road competition and neighborhood celebration
Two foremost levels — at twenty third and South streets and Grays Ferry and Catherine streets — host a full day of reside music, together with Afrobeat, jazz, hip-hop, conventional African drumming and extra. This yr’s fiftieth anniversary featured performances by Rakim and Doug E. Recent, drawing massive crowds to the South Road hall.
The adjoining streets featured greater than 100 distributors promoting handmade items, together with African textiles, jewellery, pure physique care merchandise, books and visible artwork. Meals stalls provide a variety of African, Caribbean and soul meals cuisines.
Zamunda Jewellery, primarily based in Central New Jersey, has attended Odunde as a vendor for 10 years now, providing jewellery from Kenya. Stacey from Zamunda Jewellery loves merchandising on the competition and particularly enjoys “assembly individuals from completely different cultures and sharing with individuals who ask about my tradition.”
Odunde has maintained its standing as a free and independently operated competition regardless of financial challenges and shifts in metropolis assist through the years. Odunde’s organizers emphasize its continued function as each a cultural gathering and a neighborhood anchor.
Neighborhood outreach geared toward mentoring Philadelphia youth
Via ODUNDE365, the group goals to attach Philadelphia youth to African heritage and to supply entry to cultural experiences usually lacking from formal curricula.
Simply this yr, Ogundana, entering into his function as COO, launched Odunde Sports activities, with plans to open a soccer lounge at seventeenth and South streets.
Now in its fifth decade, Odunde reveals no indicators of slowing down. Organizers have indicated that future festivals will construct on the legacy of Odunde founder Fernandez whereas persevering with to evolve with the wants of the neighborhood it serves.
What started as a small neighborhood gathering has turn into a nationally acknowledged occasion and a everlasting fixture of Philadelphia’s cultural calendar—one which continues to honor its roots whereas adapting to the longer term.
Scroll by means of these pictures that seize the extraordinary pleasure and colours of this yr’s 2025 Odunde Competition.
