SALISBURY — The Bell Tower Green was alive on Saturday with the spirit of Juneteenth, as attendees celebrated the annual observance of the end of enslavement in the United States (1865).

Booths and vendors around the park celebrated Black history and culture. One booth featured Yvonne Dixon and the African Violet Collective.

“I am an art collector,” Dixon said. “Not on the higher end, but I like the art I collect. Much of that art is about Black history. The individuals that I collect the art from are African American exhibitions or artists.”

Dixon’s exhibit, titled “Fearfully and Wonderfully Made,” welcomed visitors with a literal red carpet and a tour through the era of Black history in the United States.

“We are looking at enslavement,” Dixon said. “Then we move from the era of enslavement to the era of Reconstruction to the era of Jim Crow and then to the era of Jim Crow meets the Civil Rights Movement.”

With art everywhere in Dixon’s booth, there was a lot to take in, but some striking figurines stood out.

“One day, I was at one of our merchants here in Salisbury and I purchased the artwork in the case,” Dixon said. “That is called Sambo art.”

(Editor’s note: Historically, Sambo is considered an insensitive term. However, the art exhibition at the center of this story offered defiance to a white-centric definition of Blackness.)

“(Sambo) art was put together to more or less demean Black people with the big red lips and the very very dark skin and the body that is full figured from the man to the women,” Dixon said. “That was supposed to have been the image of what we were supposed to look like but not all Black people look like.”

Dixon indicated that she was hesitant at first to acquire the art.

“However, I said, let me read more about it,” she said. “When you read more, you learn more.”

Dixon reached out to Henry Louis Gates, the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and Director of the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University, and then read some things that he talked about regarding Sambo art.

“He said, ‘Why not us?’ as Black people collecting (the art) to help us to understand that we are fearfully and wonderfully made,” she said.

As Dixon noted, descriptions of Black people often contained underlying insult, but in a different light could be empowering.

“On my birth certificate, I am considered colored,” she said. “I am OK with that, because when you look at the Black community, we come in many different colors, many different shades and many different sizes.”

Dixon attributed those differences to African Americans’ rich cultural history and various places of origin.

“We are so diverse in who we are as a people coming from so many different countries in Africa,” Dixon said.

She conducted genealogical research on herself and discovered that in addition to her Nigerian background, she is also part Welsh.

“Learning about my own history and reading about the history helps me to understand that we are a unique group of people and that our resilience is very long,” Dixon said.

An artist herself, some of the booths featured Dixon originals.

“I did go to Africa in October of last year, and I kept thinking about what I could make and display,” she said.

On Saturday, even her attire was an extension of that artistic side.

“What I have on is called a bubu,” she said. “It is made in Senegal in West Africa. The bubu is called traditional African attire. When you think about the headpiece that African women wear, that is a part of history as well because at one time, when we were enslaved, we were not supposed to have our hair out. It was an attraction for the men. We had to wear a covering over our head and that stayed with us over the years.”

Dixon’s booth was also helping to raise money for the West End Neighborhood Organization (WENO).

“The West End Neighborhood Organization is a nonprofit that got started back in August,” she said. “We are sponsoring the chess tournament that is happening under the Salisbury Parks and Rec tent.”

For now, Dixon’s collectibles are stored in her home, although she is exploring the possibility of opening a gallery somewhere.

“I want to get it out of my house and put it in a place where people can see it and enjoy it,” Dixon said.

Suffice to say, it was enjoyed by many on Saturday.