2023 Old Federal Road Storytelling Festival

The 2023 Festival will take place outdoors at the Old Shorter High School/Shorter Elementary located on County Road 8 (a.k.a. Old Federal Road) in Shorter. Note that on Google Maps the school is called the Wolfe-Shorter High School, not to be confused with the existing D.C. Wolfe Elementary School. The correct location is the old Shorter High School that is now closed. It is located on Macon County Road 8.. The festival is free and open to the public and is funded by a generous grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts - https://arts.alabama.gov - and a sponsorship from the Caroline Marshall Draughon Center for the Arts and Humanities, Auburn University - https://cla.auburn.edu/cah

This year's theme "When Freedom Came" intends to inspire reflection on what freedom means today and what it meant in the past. The theme honors the Macon County veterans of the 136th, 137th, and 138th Regiments of the United States Colored Troops Infantry (USCTI). In the spring of 1865, a band of Union Army soldiers called "Wilson's Raiders" marched from Selma, Alabama to Columbus, Georgia on a mission to destroy essential Confederate facilities. Enslaved men joined the Raiders as they passed through Macon County. Decades later, as veterans, the men vividly recalled the moment when they joined and freedom came.

Tuskegee's Booker T. Washington High School students will perform a Reader's Theatre that draws from the words of the USCTI veterans. The festival will also feature appearances by Willie Mae Powell, Mayor, Town of Shorter, festival Emcee Norma M. Jackson, Tuskegee District 1 City Councilwoman, Dennis Powell, Special Projects Manager, Town of Shorter, and his students from D.C. Wolfe Elementary School; storytelling by gifted local storytellers Edward Pollard and Desiev Howard, Town of Shorter Councilmen, Macon County's historian Guy Trammell, Jr., and community volunteer Verner Guthrie; talented Tuskegee musicians Bill Perry and James Armstrong III, and the Inspirational Voices of Shorter; and special appearances by Chief Michelle Gilmore, Southeastern Mvskoke Nation, Troy, Alabama, and the famed Ruff Rydaz Horse Club and the Tri-State Auto Club Antique Car Club. Exhibitors and vendors will also be on site.

The very first Festival took place in 2016 to acknowledge the multicultural history of the Federal Road, which was built through Mvskoke Creek territory in the early 1800s. The road made possible the "Alabama Fever" mass migration of settlers from the eastern U.S. to the Alabama frontier as the nation expanded westward. The Alabama Fever migrants included enslaved African-Americans. The forced labor of the enslaved sustained life on the frontier. Expansion led to the forced removal and displacement of the Mvskoke Creeks to Oklahoma.

Join us on October 28 to commemorate a storied road, the Mvskoke Creeks, early settlers, and descendants who are all integral to Alabama history. For more information, contact Shari Williams at 770-843-1913 and visit The Ridge Project website at https://digtheridge.com, the Town of Shorter website at https://shorteral.gov/visiting/history, Facebook at www.facebook.com/TheRidgeMaconCountyArchaeologyProject, Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/trmcap and YouTube at https://youtu.be/SEYRNXYKooo?si=0E6AOu8zXOOwBdta

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Category: Festivals | Festival