When Patrick Woodtor went home to Liberia in 1979–with a new American wife and stepson and a master’s degree from Northwestern University in transportation planning–he thought he was leaving the Chicago area for good. But the next year the West African nation was rocked by a violent military coup; the family waited two years for things to stabilize and then decided they couldn’t wait any longer. In 1982 the Woodtors reluctantly packed their bags and returned to Evanston. “I thought it would be temporary,” Woodtor says.
Best of Chicago voting is live now. Vote for your favorites »
Two decades on, he’s never stopped thinking about going back, but he’s got plenty on his mind here in Chicago: this weekend he presents his 14th annual African Festival of the Arts, a showcase for the music, visual art, and food of Africa and its diaspora. Overshadowed every year by the free Chicago Jazz Festival, it’s quietly become one of the most important and exciting events in the city. The music programming reflects the breadth of Africa’s influence around the globe; over the years there’s been an impressive array of acts from Africa (Tabu Ley Rochereau, the Mahotella Queens, Baaba Maal) and Brazil (Daniela Mercury, Margareth Menezes), Afro-Caribbean music (Eddie Palmieri, Poncho Sanchez), jazz (Billy Bang, Hamiet Bluiett, Archie Shepp), contemporary soul and R & B (Amel Larrieux, Fertile Ground), old-school funk and soul (George Clinton, Bobby Womack, Ohio Players), blues (Bobby “Blue” Bland), and reggae (Black Uhuru). Not bad for a festival run by a guy who’s just killing time till he can go home.
Woodtor says he never had a master plan for all this. “I’ve always done things according to the direction of the spirits of the ancestors,” he says. “When I opened the shop I had no idea it would grow into what it did.”
