‘Broccoli City Festival’ makes its return to celebrate Black culture

WASHINGTON (TND) — After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Broccoli City Festival made its return with the mission of bringing together the community to celebrate, support and advance Black culture.

Brought to life in 2013, Broccoli City’s co-founders Brandon McEachern, Jermon Williams, Marcus Allen and Darryl Perkins started the festival with the mission ofcreating opportunities for Black communities through a celebration of culture, music, art and social causes.

This goal, in turn, led to the creation of one of the biggest celebrations of Black excellence.

“The evolution of Broccoli City has been a lot,” McEachern said during an interview with WTOP. “We started off doing it in The Bullpen, then we went from The Bullpen to Gateway D.C., then we did one year at the Commanders’ stadium [FedEx Field], then we have done it at RFK in the past.”

Last weekend, Broccoli City Festival brought fans from all over together to celebrate its 10-year anniversary.

For the first time, the festival was held over two days, making room for more performances. Broccoli City included performances by Washington D.C. natives Wale, Ari Lennox (who headlined Day 1), and Rico Nasty. Artists who also made a stop at the festival included Lil Durk, Gunna, Masego, Summer WalkerTems, Wizkid, 21 Savage, Jeezy, Don Toliver and more.

Keeping the goal in mind of supporting its community, organizers of the event also made time to showcase local talent in the DC-Maryland-Virginia area.

During the weekend, the festival created a space to support Black businesses as well, especially those that were hit hard during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We hope that just by them being here, it provides some glimmer of hope that they’ll be OK, right? That they’ll be fine and that they have a friend in Broccoli City who’s always going to be here to support them any way that we can,” co-founder Jermon Williams told WJLA.

For Percilla Wills, owner of Wax by Wills, it was her first time operating a booth at the event which she said was a very exciting time.

“Pulling in yesterday to set up and seeing my name on something this large, it was a little overwhelming at the time but very very exciting,” she said.