The 47th annual Jubilee Festival of Black History and Culture serves as the longest running festival in Columbia and will be held on Saturday, Sept. 20 at the Mann-Simons site on 1403 Richland St.
The festival provides various performances from Black artists, a kids zone for the children, various industry vendors around Columbia and educational opportunities for people to learn about previous generations of Black Columbia residents, according to its website.
According to the Historic Columbia website, the Mann-Simons Cottage was named after Celia Mann, who was born into slavery. She would become a free woman and eventually become affiliated with the property in 1844, where it would later be sold to Charles and Amanda Green Simons, who were civic and business leaders in Columbia.
The Simons' niece inherited and sold the property to the Columbia Housing Authority, ultimately becoming a historic site and house museum in 1978, the first year of the festival, which the festival has been at the site annually.
Executive director of Historic Columbia Suzanne Brooks said this year holds weight due to the loss of Grammy-nominated Columbia singer, Angie Stone, as she had agreed to perform this year. She passed away on March 1, 2025 in a car crash.
Stone's family approved of a tribute for her at the festival. Brooks said the festival is focused on encouraging local, Columbia talent to perform in her honor.
"I think the main heart of this festival is to put on display how special and unique what comes out of Columbia is," Brooks said. "So while we cast a wide net to encourage visitors from all over, we want them to walk away with is this, 'Oh, wow, I had no idea that this experience could be found here in Columbia.'"
TiffanyJ Wider, a mentee of Stone, said she and five other Columbia artists from her production company, Solbird Entertainment, produced and arranged the musical tribute to Stone, which was featured as an entertainment act before the headliners.
"She was a cheerleader of mine, and I was super excited that she agreed to headline Jubilee this year," Wider said. "But I still wanted to make sure that we could show her love, and hopefully heaven can hear it."
Wider attended the annual Jubilee Festival for the first time as a child.This year, she is the project manager and a main-stage performer.
"What I loved then and what I love now is that the whole family can come and enjoy it," Wider said. "It's not something you have to find a babysitter for, it's nothing that's just for kids, there's something for everybody to find something to partake into."
Music isn't the only component highlighted through Columbia. Brooks said the festival includes partners C&S Tours with a bus route for festival goers, taking them around historic sites relevant to Black history in Columbia. She said showing and explaining history in Columbia is vital to the festival, leading to retention.
"For me personally, especially from the lens of Historic Columbia, not forgetting the roots of not just this festival, but really the history and lived experience of our Black community members, is what I hope we always have a moment to celebrate with Jubilee," Brooks said. "We at Historic Columbia say that history and equity have an address, and we take our storytelling, as well as our history, very serious."
Partners such as Scholastic, C&S Tours, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Columbia SC 63 and others also support the history and educational portion of the festival, collaborating to build the various aspects of the festival, Brooks said.
CEO of OTR Media Group, USC alumnus and advisory board member of Historic Columbia Shekeese Duvall said the partners are who diversify the festival, often benefiting from the collaboration.
"Whether you're talking about banking or whether you're talking about schools or whether you're talking about insurance companies, ultimately, they all serve people," Duvall said. "You can join together with that community, not just as a service provider, but also as to say, 'Let me celebrate with you, because we're a part of each other.'"
Duvall said the goal of the festival is to display the full spectrum of Black history, as he said itsoften portrayed in one way. He draws the comparison to painting with only one color.
"I think that so often, American Blackness in the South is painted with a solid brush, and I think that brush has so many colors," Duvall said. "From gospel to jazz, to education, to exhibits, to historic homes, to food, it's like all of these different colors of the spectrum that you get a chance to amble for just a few hours in Columbia."
He said he wants the festival to continue being similar to a family reunion for Black families in Columbia, finding appreciation for the ones that came before and educating for the future.
"That is something that your kids, (grandkids and great grandkids) can continue to come back to, to honor the everyday work that often goes overlooked that was done by your grandfather, your aunties and your uncles right here in the place that you live," Duvall said.
More information about the festival including the schedule, speakers and artists can be found here.