Black people native to the Bay Area carry a deep reverence for their ancestral roots, especially their connection to the American South. That connection will be on full display Saturday, May 2, as the inaugural Berkeley Cake Walk comes to the Frances Albrier Community Center at San Pablo Park.
Berkeley Cake Walk
Saturday, May 2, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Frances Albrier Community Center, San Pablo Park, 2800 Park St., Berkeley
The event is a free, family-friendly gathering centered on food, music, and storytelling, focused on preserving and celebrating Black Berkeley’s cultural traditions. At its core, it is about creating space for intergenerational connection, cultural knowledge sharing, and the continuation of Southern-rooted practices that still shape Black life in the Bay Area.
The idea for the event began a few years ago during a conversation between friends and co-organizers Porsche Combash and Artlyn Johnson. Combash, who grew up in West Berkeley, said the vision was inspired in part by the Berkeley High all-class reunions once held at San Pablo Park.
“One of the biggest events was the Berkeley High reunion. It was a huge Black cultural event, very well attended,” Combash said.
Johnson, who grew up attending cake walks in Florida, saw an opportunity to bring that same spirit to Berkeley. In 2025, the city of Berkeley awarded the organizers a civic arts grant to help bring the event to life. Since then, they have been working closely with local churches, artists, and community members to build out the day’s programming.
“There is a specific energy that is created when Black folks are allowed to be their authentic selves by sharing their ancestral legacies,” Johnson said.
Cake walks themselves have a layered history. They began before the Civil War, when enslaved people used dance as a form of satire, mimicking the mannerisms of white slaveholders, with the best performers awarded cake. Over time, the tradition was co-opted into minstrel shows and distorted through racist caricature. But it did not stay there. Black performers and communities reshaped it, reclaiming the dance as something rooted in style, creativity, and pride.
Today, in some places, cake walks feel more like a community field day, bringing together food, crafts, and live music in a relaxed, participatory space where people connect like family.
That spirit will carry through the Berkeley event. Alongside a baking competition featuring cakes and pies rooted in Southern foodways, attendees can expect live music, storytelling, and hands-on cultural experiences.
Quilting will also be a visible part of the day, with pieces from local quilters and crocheters on display, something Johnson felt strongly about including.
“Quilters are an integral part of who we are as African Americans. Our ancestors brought that skillset with them from Africa,” she said. “It’s hard to take craft away from us because we’ve always made so much with our hands, but that handiwork is starting to get lost in a more digital world.”
Music, particularly the banjo, will play a central role as well. Hannah Mayree, founder of the Black Banjo Reclamation Project, will perform and help ground the event in a broader musical lineage.
“Wherever Black people have been, the banjo has been,” Mayree said. “I’m trying to follow those stories and understand where the banjo fits into Bay Area culture.”
She points to the once-thriving jazz scene along 7th Street in West Oakland as part of that history, evidence that these traditions have long been present in the Bay Area.
Organizers hope this is just the beginning. The Berkeley Cake Walk is intended to become an annual event, with future plans that include a Black banjo camp centered on gathering, learning, and passing down traditions.
“I think people are going to be elegantly surprised,” Johnson said. “People have been waiting for something like this. It’s a down-home, unadulterated time. Just getting to know each other.”
