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Manualynn Stowe Faison sang and clapped her hands on the back of a flat two-wheel trailer as the children around her beat on drums and other instruments.
The sun beating down on Town Creek Park on Saturday afternoon didn’t stop dozens from dancing to the rhythm.
“We were just really trying to do something to pull our neighborhood together,” said Judy McDaniel, president of the Eastside Community Club. “We’re trying to attract some younger people, because those people are our future.”
The Eastside Community Club already hosts a Halloween carnival, a Christmas dinner and an Easter egg hunt each year. The club has also taken a group to the N.C. State Fair in Raleigh.
The event included free hot dogs, snow cones and popcorn. Visitors included members of the Corvette Club and Salisbury Police Department’s drug dogs. Participants could have their faces painted or have a portrait sketched by artist Randall Leach, a senior at Appalachian State University.
Phyllis Partee and the Ensemble performed, along with musicians from Crown in Glory Lutheran Church, the United House of Prayer, Hall’s Chapel AME Zion Church and First Calvary Baptist Church.
Faison used the event to teach children about African culture and music. She demonstrated percussion instruments such as a thumb piano from Ghana.
“I’m getting them in sync with their higher self. That’s part of African culture,” said Faison, a retired teacher who now travels as an education consultant. She repeats two phrases: “Drums, not guns” and “Hope, not dope.”
“This puts self-esteem in our kids, and shows them how to follow the ways of our ancestors.
“I’m trying to unleash the creativity that lies dormant in all of us, but that the television robs.”
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