The city of Charleston may form a separate nonprofit organization to guide and support the MOJA Arts Festival to give it the long-overdue independent support it needs to gain international appeal, a city official said.
The possible plan follows the recent selection of Charlton Singleton, a founding member of the two-time Grammy Award-winning band Ranky Tanky, as the festival’s first artistic director. A five-time increase of MOJA’s budget to $375,000 made the new position possible along with plans to expand the festival’s promotion to give it the same kind of luster as the long-running Spoleto Festival USA.
The city’s Office of Cultural Affairs produces the festival, a multi-disciplinary African-American and Caribbean cultural heritage event that debuted four decades ago. Scott Watson, the city’s cultural affairs director, stressed that although the city intends to create a separate MOJA organization, the legal process to establish a registered charity will take time to accomplish. Bylaws also will need to be written to determine the process to select people to serve on a possible board directors, he added.
MOJA needs an overhaul and removal from “under the thumbprint of the city,” said City Councilman Keith Waring, who along with Councilman William Dudley Gregorie pushed for a $300,000 boost in MOJA funding.
“I always thought (the city) never wanted MOJA to compete with Spoleto,” Waring said. “One way to do that is to keep it under a department of the city instead of putting it out there with fertilization to grow.”
MOJA is funded with money collected from hotel and short-term room charges.
Two cents out of each dollar spent for a night in a hotel room or a short-term rental in South Carolina funds the Accommodations Tax Program. These “A-tax” funds are then returned to local governments to support programs that boost tourism.
Successful events in the city, such as the Cooper River Bridge Run, Spoleto and the Southeastern Wildlife Expo, each have separate nonprofit boards, Waring explained. “What we want to do is follow that same template,” he said. MOJA has never had the framework to solicit corporate contributions, he added.
Why did it take so long?
The festival is presented in partnership with the MOJA Planning Committee, a volunteer community arts and cultural group. MOJA also includes an educational outreach component focused on area public schools, seniors and community centers. The festival needs to retain some of its experienced committee members for the proposed board of directors, but also look for people with new ideas, Waring said.
Charleston Wine + Food, which once was held at Marion Square, left Charleston for North Charleston. But the organizers asked the city of Charleston last year for $300,000 in accommodations tax revenue although it was no longer centered in Charleston, Waring said. Charleston Wine + Food will receive $150,000 in A-tax funding from Charleston. Its request, however, created an opportunity for Waring and Gregorie to get unanimous support from City Council for more money for MOJA.
Waring admits MOJA is long overdue for a major funding increase and attention.
“Shame on all of us,” said Waring, who is in his twelfth year on council. “If it had not been for a nonprofit that had left Charleston [that continues] to come back for revenue I don’t believe I would have brought it up. We have talked about funding MOJA more but that should have happened sooner.”
MOJA has received “token” increases in funding over the years, he said, “but it wasn’t anything that was going to move the needle.”
Expanding MOJA, Gregorie said, “is something we have been thinking about over the years. We just jumped out and said let’s make [MOJA] what it’s supposed to be, especially under the right leadership,” he said, referring to Singleton. “I think he is the right person at this time to launch [MOJA] to where it should be.” The public, he said, might not see significant changes this year, but the “big bang” will come in 2024, he predicted.
A look back
Community organizers staged three smaller Black arts festivals in 1979, 1981 and 1983. The present-day festival was born in 1984 under the brand MOJA, a Swahili word meaning “one,” to demonstrate city-wide harmony to showcase a range of African-American and Caribbean contributions to western and world cultures. MOJA events include the visual arts, classical music, theater, poetry, storytelling, dance, jazz, gospel and children’s activities. The festival’s offering should be expanded to include rap, Gregorie said.
Singleton said he is looking forward to “growing the festival to even greater heights in every aspect of the festival.”
The MOJA events are not at the best time of the year, and they fall during hurricane season, the council members said. MOJA is consistently rained out.
“I always felt that was a bad time of the year,” Gregorie said. The festival dates must also change to be consistent with school calendars and summer vacations. This year’s festival is scheduled to start Sept. 28 and end Oct. 8.
The council members said they’d like to see MOJA offer events throughout the year, especially during Black History Month and Juneteenth, a new Black national holiday. The opportunity to do that is now enhanced with the soon-to-open International African American Museum, they said.
The increased support for MOJA presented an opportunity for Watson to reflect on one of MOJA’s early and most vocal supporters, the late Jack McCray, who passed away in November 2011. McCray, a jazz advocate and columnist for The Post and Courier, was MOJA’s founding president. He and others also produced jazz performances during Piccolo Spoleto and the MOJA.
“I feel like Jack McCray is looking over our shoulders on a lot of these decisions, and my challenge is to make sure he would be nodding and approving,” Watson said. “Jack was there getting MOJA up and running, getting it out of the ditch, and all he ever wanted was the city to put its money where its mouth was.”
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