The Crocker Art Museum welcomed all of Sacramento to the Black History Month Free Family Festival on Sunday, featuring art, live jazz music, arts and crafts, quilts, fabrics and poetry.

Crocker Art’s theme for the festival, “Interwoven,” was inspired by the late and renowned artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold’s artwork, “The Sunflower’s Quilting Bee.” The piece was chosen to represent Black History Month as not a single story, but as a living and evolving experience shaped by many voices, traditions and intergenerational narratives. The artwork was displayed on the second floor of the museum.

Faith Ringgold’s artwork, “The Sunflower’s Quilting Bee,” displayed at Crocker Arts Museum for its Black History Free Family Festival Sunday, Feb. 23, 2026. The art piece was chosen for Crocker Art’s theme of “Interwoven” for the festival. (Photo by Maribel Martinez)

The festival was hosted in partnership with Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum, whose mission is to honor African American history through remembrance and celebration of culture.

“Moving forward, people hopefully will remember one thing about the activities that occurred today: that we should be interwoven,” said Shonna McDaniels, the executive director at Sojourner Truth African Heritage Museum.

Sacramento State alumna Kayla Gales attended the event and spoke on the exhibit’s art themes that portrayed interwovenism’s ties to Black feminism.

“It’s nice to see women – instead of hiding inside the shadows and letting other people take over – challenging patriarchy and putting themselves more at the front,” Gales said.

Walking through the festival, guests felt the beat of the music, chose from an assortment of food trucks, connected with community organisations and made unique crafts at the various booths scattered across the museum.

Da’Reen Reichenberg and Keia Kodama’s art piece, “Unwavering Sun,” was displayed in front of Kodama’s sunflower arts and crafts booth at Crocker Arts Museum Sunday, Feb. 23, 2026. Kodama said the crafts were inspired by “The Sunflower’s Quilting Bee” by Faith Ringgold. (Photo by Maribel Martinez)

Keia Kodama, a local artist and art educator at the Crocker Art Museum, helped people make sunflowers out of colored paper with a strand of faux hair interwoven in the middle.

“A painting by Faith Ringgold upstairs just kept calling me, so I partnered with a friend of mine, Doreen, who owns Poppy and Pots,” Kodama said. “Together, we merged both of our creative backgrounds to create the sunflower craft with the hair.”

She also explained the history behind hair for the Black community and how the event’s theme resonates with her.

“The history of hair in the Black community is a lineage that a lot of people don’t know about, from us braiding in maps to our hair to for the Underground Railroad, to us hiding food and rice in our hair all the way until now,” Kodama said.

Related: Remembrance: Artists commemorate vibrant African history in ‘Black History Month Exhibition’

At the event, many musicians performed a variety of music to honor and commemorate Black musicians. One of these bands was Element Brass Band, who covered songs from Rebirth Brass Band, Hot 8 Brass Band, Hugh Masekela, Paul Barbarin, Albert Brumley and Louis Armstrong.

“I want people to understand black creativity is something that can be respected,” said Joby Morrow, the trombonist for Element Brass Band. “Joy and personal strength are the way you get out of tough times.”

Crocker Arts Museum sets the stage for Black dancers to come and perform for the audience on Sunday, Feb. 23 2026. Boynarr Sow performed at the Black History Month Free Family festival. (Photo by Maribel Martinez)

The museum welcomed over 2,600 visitors to celebrate Black History Month through music and art on Sunday alone.

Christopher Rose, a visitor at the museum, said, “I like the really fun live music. The atmosphere is really nice, and everybody I’ve met so far has been so kind.”

On the second floor, various organizations set up booths to inform people on Sacramento’s resources. Black Women United, Sistabees, Spoken Word Federation, Celebration Arts, Camp Be’chol Lashon, Sacramento Juneteenth Inc. and Escape Velocity Resources all tabled.

SistaBees is an organization dedicated to providing fun, safe and inclusive spaces for young women and feminine-identifying youth of color. The organization focuses on mental health, self-development, leadership skills and mentorship for middle school to high school students.

Nakeya Bell, the Executive Director, and Shakeya Bell, the Program Manager for SistaBees, talked about the importance of Black History Month.

“We celebrate Black History Month every day. It’s so important to celebrate Black history due to all of the amazing contributions made by Black folk,” Bell said.

Johyne Geran, the chair of the Children’s Quilt Project at the Sisters Quilting Collective in Sacramento, a non-profit organization, talked about how quilting has impacted her life.

“Quilting can be fun, it’s relaxing and it can be very simplistic,” Geran said. “I started quilting at 51 after I had attended a quilt show in Oakland that was held by East Bay Heritage Quilters Society.”

She expressed that Black History Month is a celebration of how much African American people have contributed to society in general, especially in the United States.

“It’s really an honor to be at the Crocker and have all these events going on,” Geran said.

The festival also hosted poetry readings performed by Straight Out Scribes owners V.S. Chochezi and her mother, who preferred to be called Staajabu. Together they read out nine poems, including “Quilt Codes,” “Riddem Chant” and “The Sound of Black.” All poems were performed simultaneously or individually by mother and daughter to tell the story of Black culture and identity.

“Performing poems, essays or films is effective in terms of stimulating your brain and connecting with your spiritual self,” Staajabu said.

Children’s author JaNay Brown-Wood read children her books “Jam, Too?,” “This Hair Belongs, “Shhh! The Baby’s Asleep” and “Imani’s Moon.” She spoke on the importance of Black children finding themselves in literature.

“I believe all children should find themselves on the page of books in meaningful ways,” Brown-Wood said. “I hope what they get from my reading is joy and validation that the characters look like them.”

Alongside live music, artists painted in front of audiences as they walked around The Crocker Art Museum. Shawntay Gorman, Gerry Gos Simpson, Jermaine Tilson, Brown-Wood and Richard Henry explored different mediums related to the event’s theme.

From oil paintings to complex sketches, the museum welcomed different forms of self-expression from local artists to foster a sense of community.

Kat Haro, director of marketing and communications at The Crocker Art Museum, talked about the impact of art and representation in Sacramento.

“Art has the power to show people societal issues in a new way and make them think about things they haven’t looked very closely at before,” Haro said. “It’s sort of a nice gateway, like, ‘Oh, this is pretty, but it actually means something too.’”