Tobago’s Heritage Festival: A Vessel of Memory
Sophia Cooper, a cultural bearer from Tobago, shared how the Tobago Heritage Festival began as a way for villages to preserve and perform their unique traditions. Rooted in post-independence efforts in 1962 and formally established in 1987, the festival brings communities together for weeks of cultural storytelling through dance, music, food, and reenactments.
Her personal insights breathe life into the pageantry, showing how cultural expression is woven with meaning—one step, one tradition, one village at a time. “Sometimes what we’re taught in the classroom isn’t our history,” Cooper noted. “We have to teach each other our own version, so nobody else can tell us who we are.”
Among its most celebrated events is the Moriah Ole Time Wedding—a dramatization of an 18th-century matrimonial procession, complete with colonial-era costumes, bamboo tambrin music, and symbolic dances like the brush-back, where three steps forward and two back remind couples that love is built on perseverance through hardship.
Sunset’s Century-Long Story of Resilience
That same spirit of self-definition beats at the heart of Sikeston’s Sunset Addition. Established in July 1923, when 15 acres were set aside for Sikeston’s Black residents, Sunset became a thriving, self-sustaining neighborhood despite the constraints of segregation. The community built its own churches, schools, groceries, theaters, and sports leagues—standing as a beacon of Black enterprise and culture in the Missouri Bootheel.
By 2000, descendants and former residents began hosting Return to Sunset, a homecoming tradition that has grown into a regional gathering. Sunset N Da Bootheel builds on this legacy by broadening the circle—uniting descendants of Sunset with people from historically Black communities across the Bootheel, and now, linking them with the African diaspora.
Cultural Exchange Across the Diaspora
The Tobago Old Time Moriah Wedding Group performed their traditional wedding ceremony, offering an immersive glimpse into Caribbean heritage. One highlight was the “Jumping the Broom” ceremony—a custom born during enslavement when legal marriages were denied to Black people. Today, it remains a powerful act of love and resilience, connecting generations across the African diaspora.
As Sophia Cooper explained, cultural performances are not just entertainment: they are “vessels of rebellion and transition,” reminding people of where they came from so they never lose their way.
One Festival, Two Legacies, Shared Future
The pairing of Tobago’s heritage through Sunset N Da Bootheel with Sikeston’s Return to Sunset celebration underscores a larger truth: across oceans and centuries, Black communities have created, preserved, and reimagined traditions as tools of survival, resistance, and joy.
This past Labor Day weekend, Sikeston celebrated culture, history, and resilience in powerful ways.
the rhythms of Tobago, a hilarious Sikeston v Charleston softball game and a mini kite festival, mingled with the stories of Sunset. The result was more than a festival—it was a living classroom, a reunion, and a celebration of cultural survival.
The Return to Sunset Homecoming and Sunset N Da Bootheel 2025 were held as separate events, each with its own leadership and vision.
- Return to Sunset continues its long-standing tradition of bringing together descendants and friends of Sikeston’s historic Sunset Addition community.
- Sunset N Da Bootheel, organized by Valerie Longstreet, Jessie Bonner, and Mark Wiggins, hosted a landmark cultural exchange by bringing the Tobago Old Time Moriah Wedding Group to Missouri for the very first time.
While these events were independent of one another, they both reflect a shared commitment: celebrating Black history, honoring ancestors, and strengthening community ties. Paraphrasing Ms. Valerie, “We look forward to the possibility of closer collaboration in the future as our community continues to grow, remembering that together we can honor our past while creating new traditions for generations to come.”
As the skies over Sunset glow at dusk, the music, dance, and rituals testify to the resilience of two different communities yet deeply connected moving forward together, one step at a time.
