DATE: Thursday, September 18, 1997          TAG: 9709180050

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TERRI WILLIAMS, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   83 lines

PORTSMOUTH SEEKS TO MAKE UMOJA A FORCE TO PROMOTE RACIAL HARMONY

THE ADS ON the TRT buses rolling through Portsmouth read: ``Umoja, an African-American Cultural Celebration.''

The festival, a weekend full of music, discussion and arts, begins Friday, and city officials are proud of its achievements in celebrating African-American culture.

But they want more. They've long wanted to use the festival to bridge racial differences in Portsmouth.

Now they're taking steps to draw a more diverse audience to Umoja - or at least to the general vicinity of the festival.

Umoja, they note, means ``unity'' in its original East African Kiswahili language - something in short supply at times in Portsmouth.

``There was a lot of infighting and racial division,'' said Vice Mayor Johnny M. Clemons, a supporter of broadening Umoja's appeal. ``There had been a lot of hurt. We need to put all the old wounds aside and start healing.''

City officials say it is not a coincidence that this weekend Umoja will run at the same time as the ``Visions From the Fields of Merit'' exhibit at the Portsmouth Arts Center.

The exhibit, which features Eastern and Western art, runs Sept. 14-20.

It is highlighted by mandala sand paintings being done by Tibetan Buddhist monks. The monks are from a monastery forced to move to India after China occupied their country in 1959. They have been painting the mandalas all week. Their work will conclude Saturday with a closing ceremony that has special meaning to cultural diversity, said Arts Center curator Gayle Paul.

Sand mandalas are destroyed after they are made, she noted, demonstrating the impermanence of life. During the closing ceremony, half of the sand will be given to the audience and the other half will be carried to a nearby river to be swept to the ocean and the shores of other countries as a healing blessing.

``When you study different cultures, you recognize the differences and similarities of different people,'' Paul said. ``We can all learn and expand our minds.''

Umoja officially starts at 5 p.m. Friday with a processional gathering at London Boulevard and Water Street and concludes Sunday.

Next year, in an even more ambitious attempt to draw different races together, city officials say they will run Umoja concurrently with the Shriners' Fishbowl Classic and perhaps schedule some events in the normally off-limits Naval Shipyard's Trophy Park.

Umoja observations in Portsmouth began in September 1991 when former Portsmouth City Manager V. Wayne Orton returned from a trip to Annapolis, Md.

Orton had visited an African-American themed festival there and was so excited about the event that he asked his staff to organize one.

The fest is based on the first of seven principles of Kwanzaa, an African-American cultural holiday celebrated from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1. The principles and their translations are Umoja, unity; Kujichagulia, self-determination; Ujima, collective work; Ujamaa, cooperative economics; Nia, purpose; Kuumba, creativity; and Imani, faith.

People in Portsmouth say they would welcome the change.

``I love all kinds of different festivities,'' said Gerri Sherman, a hostess at Portsmouth Olde Towne's Brutti's Cafe and Bakery. ``The education to me is unlike anything you'd get in a class-room.''

Dr. Adrienne Coqueran, a Virginia Beach resident with a family practice on Portsmouth Boulevard, said it was time that event planners worked to attract a diverse crowd.

``This area has had so much segregation, both on the part of blacks and on the part of whites,'' Coqueran said. ``It's time to bring the community together.''

The city said it will take care that making the fest more inclusive doesn't detract from it's African-American theme.

Umoja chairwoman L. Pettis Patton, the city's director of parks, recreation and general services, said attracting a diverse crowd enables people of different cultures to learn more about one another.

``When you learn more about a people, then you're about working better with a people, respecting and understanding them,'' Patton said. ``When you understand, you can embrace and then commend.'' ILLUSTRATION: Graphic

UMOJA Festival

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Umoja Festival Schedule

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