Page 23 - Clay County: Communities, Families, & Friends 2024

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Many people love soul food, but what is it? Writers describe
soul food as the down-home Southern-styled country cooking
with its origins in the Deep South. Whether from Georgia,
Mississippi, or Alabama, eating meant using portions of
inexpensive meat undesirable to genteel Southern men and
belles, but it was what the workers ate – mostly enslaved
African American people who labored in the fields and houses
of those who followed the laws of the day. As many folks’
grandparents and great-grandparents might say, “made do.”
Today, soul food is IN and VERY expensive. From sweet
potato pies to grits, gravy and biscuits, soul food is celebrated
with wine, expensive libations, and all the trimmings.
Consider today’s television shows and notable chefs. In
Florida’s capital city at the Governor’s Club, when Jacques
Couteau’s “chef ” caused many to stay away from the palatial
surroundings for political meetings and high society
networking, contemporary-styled soul food created by Chef
John Seals, saved the day! Why? It is because good food brings
joy to the belly, love to the heart, and makes people SO FULL,
also known as soulful, and happy! I add that Chef Seals is my
father, and he is still living. The late Attorney Peter Harris,
the first black chairman of the board of the Governor’s Club,
published a book regarding the Club’s history inclusive of the
work behind the scenes to get it successfully out of debt – with
food as the center of attention.
The most common meal pig’s feet and ears, ham hocks, hog
jowls, pork rinds, and chitterlings are no longer strange words.
Add creamed corn, collard greens, corn bread, sweet potatoes,
and…well, you get it, the American cuisine is certainly diverse
no matter one’s palette. Of importance, soul food was and
remains a way of life. Using knowledge obtained from their
West-Central African homelands, new-found friends among
indigenous Americans, and satisfying those for whom they
cooked, it is no secret that their ways of cookery made it to
the top of enjoyed cuisine in today’s gastronomical landscape.
It was what had to be – eating what some thought was good
for nothing, cheap meat scraps, and inexpensive vegetables
– some grown in the fields of the enslavers, some sown and
grown on their land (owned or loaned),when allowed, and
some from the wild lands where they lived.
Local History
In Green Cove Springs, Florida, due South of Fleming Island,
from Palmetto Avenue south to Martin Luther King, Jr.
Boulevard west, the 23rd Annual Soul Food and Music Festival
will bring to life what all the hype is about, October 5, 2024.
According to the founders and organizers, this began in 2002
with a group of community leaders who created a novel way
to breathe life into the “west side” of the community, less than
a mile from Highway 17, where the vestiges of the only African
American high school, Dunbar High School, existed and going
north a block away to the former Bannerman Elementary
School, now Bannerman Learning Center. The high school,
closed since desegregation in December 1967, is home to
various offices and programs collectively located at Augusta
Savage Arts and Community Center.
Former Mayor Matthew Tinney, Jr., John Sanders, Charles
Battle, Coach Lawrence James, Issac Brown, Delphine
Williams, Clarence Hampshire, Sr., and former Mayor
Felecia Hampshire were the original organizers of the Soul
Food Festival of Green Cove Springs. Now known as the
Green Cove Springs Soul Food & Music Festival, the event is
traditionally held at Vera Francis Hall Park. With the help of
the City of Green Cove Springs and local citizens, this once
blighted area is a beautiful 13-acre park on the banks of the
historic Governors Creek.
Since its founding, the festival has grown from approximately
500 to over 5,000 attendees. Vendors, national recording artists
and local entertainers, and its supporters give the Green Cove
Springs geographic area an economic boost for the one-day
event. Since 2002, Clarence and Felecia Hampshire, a dynamic
husband-wife team, along with many volunteers, coordinate
and plan the event. And what is a festival without a queen?
Festival Queens
Festivals do have queens and the same goes for the Soul Food &
Music Fest! According to
Mrs. Hampshire, beauty
abounds but so do ethics,
standards, principles, and
community involvement.
Meet the queens who
come to life through this
photographic revue.
Soul Food Festival History
& Reflections
By Dr. Cheryl Gonzalez, Community Engagement Engineer
Soul Food Festival Queen 2024
Dr. Sarver, Registered Nurse, with a DPN (Doctorate
in Nurse Practitioner). She oversees three emergency
departments for Ascension-St. Vincents. She is the pastor of
LAS Marketplace Ministries, providing spiritual support, and
serving with dedication and compassion to her community.
Dr. Lorrie Ann Sarver