"Aspire not to have more but to be more" This year's 41st festival theme is "UPLIFT: Aspire to Inspire". This year's festival goal is to inspire the African-American community to aspire to be more in their daily lives.

"Live a life...leave a legacy" was the theme of our 40th African-American Heritage Festival. For this commitment, you will be commemorating the past 40 years of this rich festival's legacy.

"Attract what you expect. Reflect what you desire become what you respect and mirror what you admire."

KUINUA is the Swahili word for "UPLIFT". The theme of this year's 41st Festival is "UPLIFT: Aspire to Inspire".

"And so, lifting as we climb, onward and upward we go, struggling and striving, and hoping that the buds and bloosoms of our desires will burst into glorious fruition ere long. With courage, born of success achieved in the past, with a keen sense of the responsibility which we shall continue to assume, we look forward to a future large with promise and hope. Seeking no favors because of our color, nor patronage because of our needs, we knock at the bar of justice, asking an equal chance." - Mary Church Terrell, advocate for African-American Women