50th anniversary Odunde Festival in Philadelphia: What you need to know
The first Odunde Festival was held in 1975. Half a century later, it’s run by the daughter and grandson of co-founder Lois Fernandez.
2 weeks ago
Oshunbumi Fernandez-West took over as head of Philadelphia’s Odunde Festival in from the founder and her mother Lois Fernandez. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)
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When doctors urged Lois Fernandez to terminate her pregnancy more than five decades ago, they warned she might not survive childbirth. But Fernandez refused. “You are not God,” she told them.
Her daughter, Oshunbumi “Bumi” Fernandez-West, was born anyway — a moment her mother called a miracle. Named for the Yoruba goddess Oshun, Fernandez-West now leads the Odunde Festival, an annual celebration of African culture that her mother co-founded in 1975 after a life-changing trip to Nigeria.
This year marks the golden anniversary of the Odunde Festival — five decades of celebrating African heritage and spiritual tradition in Philadelphia. For Fernandez-West, the most meaningful moment is the annual procession to the Schuylkill River to honor the Yoruba goddess.
It’s a ritual that brings her back to her mother, whose back she was strapped to during the very first Odunde Festival. Continuing the tradition was her own choice, a legacy she chose to uphold even as her brother took another path. The two are no longer close.
Fernandez-West began running Odunde in 1992 when she was 22 years old, which means she’s been the organizer for longer than her mother, who died in 2017 at the age of 81.
In October 2017, she married Anthony West, who is from Philadelphia and is CEO of his own company, 4 Elements of Life Wholistic. Now a mother of five in a blended family, Bumi Fernandez-West is raising four sons and a daughter. Two of her sons, Adeniyi Ogundana, 20, and Abayomi Ogundana, 17, are already helping carry the Odunde legacy forward — Adeniyi as the festival’s chief operating officer and Abayomi as its creative digital director.
For decades, she’s learned how to navigate the spotlight and uses the gym as an oasis without the demands of work or family life.
“My mom’s inability to tell people no put her in an early grave,” Bumi said. “I think my mother would have been here longer if she would have set boundaries. A lot of illnesses are due to stress, which are due to a lot of women not saying no. I’m okay with saying no and some people are not going to like it, but that’s okay as I try to teach the young girls around me, don’t wear yourself out.”
She earned a bachelor’s degree in human biology and anthropology from Temple University, followed by a master of business administration degree from La Salle University. Though she’s never visited Nigeria like her mother did in 1972, she’s traveled to Ghana and South Africa for award ceremonies at which she accepted awards as Odunde’s CEO. One day, she hopes to visit all 54 countries across the African continent.
In 1998, she created the mentorship program for young women I AM B.U.M.I, which stands for beautiful, unique, magnificent individual.
In 2011, she created Odunde365, which is year-round children’s programming for African and African American cultural studies, including drumming, dance, arts and entrepreneurship.
Her latest group of teen entrepreneurs from Martin Luther King High School are set to sell their products at a table during Sunday’s Odunde Festival.
Just 16 weeks ago, Fernandez-West said, “These kids knew nothing about business;, now they have a name, logo, product and did a pop-up shop.”
As part of the program, funded by a city anti-violence grant, students are also required to open bank accounts, learning the basics of financial responsibility alongside entrepreneurship.
Fernandez-West’s mother was a social worker who did anti-gang-violence work inside Philadelphia recreation centers in the 1970s. Fernandez-West has also worked in recreation centers doing the same thing — she said their lives were in “parallel universes.”
“My mother took a lot of care for our community and I think I developed that same love too,” she said.
After months of preparation, and then throwing the 15-block-long street festival, Fernandez-West typically takes off work for at least a month to recover.
“Odunde is a lot of work. I know a lot of people like to judge your life by social media — but don’t believe the hype,” she said. “It’s a lot of time when I’m not with my children. And when I’m home but not focused because I have so much work to do, sometimes I have to lock in [at work], which causes me not to give my husband or my children the proper attention, so it’s a lot of work. Children who want to continue their parents’ legacy [carry] a lot of weight. But it’s been an honor and I love what I do. I wouldn’t change it for nothing in the whole world.”
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