What AFRAM means to Baltimore, through 3 generations

For one entertainment columnist, AFRAM was an anticipated musical immersion. For one local artist, it captured a personal moment in time. And for a Baltimore transplant, it showed the city’s grit and gratitude.

From the personal to the professional, there is no shortage of reasons to attend AFRAM, one of the largest African American festivals on the East Coast. People from Baltimore and beyond share memories of the event that stretch across its 50-year run, collecting and even preserving their interactions with AFRAM over the years.

We caught up with three different generations of festivalgoers to hear about their core memories from the event.

1980s

“I don’t depreciate,” said Rosa Pryor-Trusty, 82, as a Lucky Strike cigarette teetered on her bottom lip. “I go where there’s live entertainment.”

Pryor-Trusty has written the “Rambling Rose” entertainment column in The Baltimore Times since the 1980s. For decades, she didn’t miss a single AFRAM as a writer for the newspaper. Somewhere in her house, she said, is a folder filled with all her flyers from the festival and other memorabilia from the various times she attended.

As a former singer, musician, manager and promoter, she even booked some groups she managed for AFRAM, she said — though she doesn’t quite remember who after all these years. But she wasn’t afraid to walk up to a performer she didn’t know and introduce herself.

Pryor-Trusty most enjoyed when Norman E. Ross, the original organizer of AFRAM, coordinated the event because he seemed to do his research on the entertainers, booking acts like The Manhattans and The Four Tops. The columnist was often critically honest in her pieces about festival performances, criticizing the song selections, if instruments weren’t played correctly or whether groups needed more rehearsal.

Pryor-Trusty continued to follow the music each year even as the festival hopped around the city. But she hasn’t been since before COVID, and said the womanizing lyrics from some rap and hip-hop artists that the festival has featured take away from the positivity of AFRAM. But making it to 50 years?

“I think it’s fantastic,” she said.

1990s

When Akio Evans looks at his art piece, “The Picture We Carried,” the word “preservation” comes to mind. The painted image is a re-creation of a photo of his family at AFRAM in 1993— one of the very few pictures the Baltimore-born artist and visual storyteller has with his mother.

For Evans, AFRAM was like an unofficial family reunion where he reconnected with familiar faces he hadn’t seen since winter.

“It was a powerful, powerful time to be alive because people took a lot of pride in Black culture,” Evans said about attending AFRAM in the 1990s.

People gathered and danced. Baltimore club music filled the air. The festival sounds almost completely muffled the reality of what was happening beyond the frozen moment in the photo: AFRAM was a bit of a refuge that year for Evans’ family, which was going through a financial rough patch, he said. The festival was a way for them to have a good time and enjoy folks coming together in a “peaceful and harmonious way.”

“The Picture We Carried,” a snapshot of that moment in time, was recently displayed at the Quid Nunc Art Gallery and is now at Evans’ Station North studio.

In a full-circle moment, Evans had a chance to partner with AFRAM in recent years to showcase his artwork.

AFRAM continues to try to have something for everyone, he said, from health resources to new vendors and fresh music.

“We see a lot of different other festivals that happen throughout the world, but AFRAM has always been something special,” Evans said.

2020s

Jazmin Lovett, originally from Bridgeport, Connecticut, first heard about the festival from her uncle, who owned a restaurant in Little Italy. As Miss Black Baltimore 2024, the Morgan State University graduate received a media pass for AFRAM so she could mingle with other creators to post content on her social media.

“My first experience with AFRAM was a dream,” Lovett said.

The festival introduced her to many grassroots groups and city agencies, including Baltimore’s recreation and parks department, that she said encouraged her to explore the city’s history and other local festivals.

“I’ve been inspired watching everybody else make their moves and do things to help the community in the city, and I’ve lived here for the last several years, so it’s my community, too,” Lovett said.

Though she’s a newbie to the festival, she tries to attend it annually with friends. This year, she can’t wait to listen to SWV and Charlie Wilson.

“If you at least get to one, it’s addictive,” Lovett said “You’re gonna keep coming back over and over again.”