The story
2nd Street Festival in Richmond
The 2nd Street Festival celebrates the historic Jackson Ward neighborhood, once known as the Harlem of the South for its thriving Black-owned businesses and entertainment venues. Held free each October along Richmond's Second Street, the festival has grown into the Mid-Atlantic's largest street festival, offering four stages of live music, a marketplace, an Artists Row, and free walking tours of the district's history.
The 2nd Street Festival takes its name and setting from a street that, for several decades in the early twentieth century, stood at the absolute center of Richmond's African American life.