The past, present, and future of the ODUNDE festival

Now more than ever

The celebration comes at an opportune time. “As America approaches its 250th birthday, it’s more important than ever to …uplift African and African American culture as an essential part of our nation’s story,” said Fernandez-West. ODUNDE’s joyous mood and spotlight on Black culture may help counter efforts to erase Africans' and African Americans’ contribution to building and sustaining the country, Fernandez-West believes.

The festival, centered around 23rd and South Streets, will span 16 blocks on the latter thoroughfare. It will feature food to please every palate, two stages with live entertainment, and a bustling African marketplace with goods from Africa, the Caribbean, and Brazil, including fashion, accessories, home décor, beauty products, and more.

Besides many performers, the festival will have the ODUNDE Sports Zone, “…a multi-zone sports experience that blends competition, community, and on-site media coverage of FIFA 2026,” said Fernandez-West.

ODUNDE is in its 51st year. A 1972 trip to Nigeria by the late Lois Fernandez, mother of Fernandez-West, planted the seeds for the celebration. While in Nigeria, Fernandez learned about ODUNDE, a new year’s celebration held by the Yoruba people, a large ethnic group living in southwestern Nigeria, Benin, and Togo. ODUNDE falls in the month of Okudu—roughly corresponding to early June—on the traditional Yoruba calendar. In 1975, Fernandez and her friend Ruth Arthur co-founded ODUNDE, then a one-day event, with a $100 grant and community support. “I wanted to bring African culture to Philadelphia,” Fernandez once said in an interview.

Carry on tradition

The Yoruba people mark ODUNDE by offering fruit, flowers—usually in a yellow-orange-gold palette, such as sunflowers and oranges—to Oshun, a major deity, or Orisha, in Yoruba pantheon, whose realm includes love, fertility, beauty, healing, and prosperity. Practitioners of the Yoruba tradition may also give honey to Oshun, who is said to be embodied in fresh water. The June 14 festival includes a procession to the nearby Schuylkill River where participants will cast offerings into the water.

ODUNDE recalls an aspect of our nation’s past. The Yoruba were among the West Africans kidnapped during the Atlantic slave trade. They were taken to Brazil, the Caribbean, especially Cuba, and the Georgia and Carolina Sea Islands where they practiced their religion, sometimes secretly. Today, one may witness Yoruba culture, including ODUNDE, in Oyotuni African Kindgom, a village in Seabrook, South Carolina, or the historic nineteenth-century Yoruba Village in Trinidad, which still exists today. Philly’s ODUNDE has weathered challenges over the years, such as sufficient funding and a 1984 petition by some neighbors living in gentrifying area of the celebration to move it to another site. Covid-19 forced to go virtual in 2020.

This year, ODUNDE will take place in its traditional South Street setting and will have new elements. A daily community activity will lead up to the street fete. For example, on Sunday, June 7, a community fitness session will be held. On Wednesday, June 10, the public may attend “Afro Beats and Vibes,” an evening of African music, rhythms, and culture.

In addition, Fernandez-West has created ODUNDE365, which provides year-round programming. With its focus on education, wellness, and community empowerment, ODUNDE provides classes on yoga, fitness, fashion design, entrepreneurship, and African drumming and dancing. “I feel like I’m a natural dancer,” said Layah Booker, 11, who will perform with other young dancers from the Fruitful Children Foundation. “I get to feel the rhythm and embrace the dance,” Booker said.