10th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival Reserved Tables

Oakland’s Black-Eyed Pea Festival Celebrates Black History in Music, Food and Art

The 10th Annual Black-Eyed Pea Festival on Saturday, Sept. 13, 2025, at Marston Campbell Park at 17^th and West streets in West Oakland from 11 a.m.-6 p.m. 

Round tables seat 6 and a reservation for the whole day is $150.

The FREE community event celebrates African American legacy through food, music and art appeals to all ages.

It features African American traditional music from several genres including straight-ahead jazz, New Orleans-style second-line and Zydeco. Our full line-up includes Grammy-nominated Andre Thierry Accordion Soul Music (Zydeco); MJ’s Brass Boppers (second-line); Piwai and Mystic Gong, and the Oakland School for the Arts Jazz Band.

The festival will begin with sacred acknowledgment of the land by Wakan-Wiya Two-Spirit Drum and Awon Ohun Omnira’s drumming homage to African ancestors.

The BEPF is providing dedicated fun for children with jump rope, arts and crafts by the KIPP Charter School and 

For adults, Bushmama will conduct an indigo dying workshop, referencing the African origins of the plant cultivated by enslaved Africans that would eventually give rise to the denim industry.

Hand-made items for sale by people of African descent will include among others the paintings, mugs and prints by the festival’s poster designer Karin Turner.

Come and eat, and we mean EAT!

Local chefs from Ate O Clock catering and Coco Breeze restaurant offer typical soul food and Trinidadian fare, including black-eyed peas. Hal Stephens will have your festival fare – hot dogs and hamburgers – while Cameroonian chef Marie will make a vegan plate with a black-eyed pea patty. You don't like peas? Well, here's where Chef Saucy brings you spicy oysters and  Chef Alice has a diving stuffed potato recipe to whet your appetite. 

Why a Black-Eyed Pea Festival?

“The black-eyed pea is a metaphor for what is resilient, creative, and collaborative about African-American culture,” said Wanda Ravernell, director of the Black-Eyed Pea Festival and founder of Omnira Institute.

“We are especially pleased to have a range of genres in this year’s line-up because it brings to mind the time when Oakland’s Seventh Street was the ‘Harlem of the West,’” Ravernell said. Gentrification has almost finished the job that the construction of the Grove Shafter Freeway, BART tracks and the Post Office did in dividing what had once been a thriving Black community.

The sound of the music, the scent of the food and the creativity of the artists invokes that time of prosperity. “Their work is entertaining, but it’s also a history lesson and a healing.”

The festival is sponsored by the Post News group and receives support from the California Arts Council, The San Francisco Foundation, the Alliance for California Traditional Arts and the Center for Cultural Power.

“This festival brings our mission to life,” says Ravernell. “We want to highlight and preserve the cultural and spiritual traditions of African Americans and demonstrate how these traditions are connected to Africa and the African Diaspora. “

For more information, please see our web site www.oakbepf.com or email us at oakbepf@gmail.com or call (510) 332-5851.