FESTAC '77

FESTAC '77, the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, was held in Lagos from 15 January to 12 February 1977 (Wikipedia). The month-long festival celebrated African music, art, literature, drama, dance and religion. About 16,000 participants from 56 African nations and countries of the African diaspora took part, and the event drew some 500,000 spectators; at the time it was the largest pan-African gathering ever held. Performers included Stevie Wonder, Gilberto Gil, Miriam Makeba and Franco Luambo Makiadi. Most events were held at the National Theatre, the National Stadium in Surulere, Lagos City Hall and Tafawa Balewa Square.

The festival's emblem was a replica of a royal ivory mask, made by Erhabor Emokpae of Benin. According to Wikipedia's article on Queen Mother Idia, the ivory pendant it reproduced is identified with her, and it has since become a symbol of Nigerian and African cultural heritage.

FESTAC '77 was the second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. The first had been held in Dakar, Senegal, in April 1966, under the leadership of Léopold Sédar Senghor and with outside support including UNESCO, and a pan-African festival followed in Algiers in 1969 (Wikipedia). These festivals grew from the movement of writers and thinkers of African descent who, from the 1940s, gathered around the Paris journal and publishing house Présence Africaine, founded by Aimé Césaire, Senghor and others; its forums brought together writers such as Cheikh Anta Diop, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and Frantz Fanon (Wikipedia).

Hosting the festival led to the creation of the Nigerian National Council of Arts and Culture, Festac Village and the National Theatre at Iganmu, Lagos (Wikipedia).

The festival's emblem, the ivory mask identified with Queen Mother Idia of Benin, was afterwards reproduced widely as a symbol of Nigerian and African cultural heritage (Wikipedia, Idia). The festival also left Lagos the National Theatre at Iganmu and Festac Village, and led to the Nigerian National Council of Arts and Culture (Wikipedia).