Madam Walker Legacy Fest brings back Indiana Avenue’s Black history

As dozens of people and music filled Indiana Avenue, Sampson Levingston gestured to the scene around him as evidence of a return to the area’s history as a hub of Black life and music.

“This is what Indiana Avenue is supposed to be. Black people having a good time on a Saturday in the summer,” Levingston said. “That’s our history. That’s our story.”

The fifth annual Legacy Fest, organized by the Madam Walker Legacy Center, honored that story on June 19 and 20. A block party with food trucks, vendors selling one-of-a-kind jeweled hats and patchwork denim, jewelry, and live musical performances capped off the Juneteenth weekend. The day before, Grammy-winning producer Teddy Riley performed in the Walker Theatre.

The block circles the Walker Building, a triangular African Art Deco theater topped with a red sign easily spotted in Indianapolis’ skyline. The 1927 building is the last building still operating in its original state on a street once filled with Black-owned businesses but now dominated by fences and parking lots.

After being forced by a former downtown Indianapolis theater to pay a “Black tax,” Walker promised to build a theater without discrimination. The building was home to Walker Manufacturing Company and a 1500-seat theater, the only theater without race-based discrimination in the city at the time. The theater still regularly puts on shows and holds the Madam Walker Legacy Center non-profit responsible for and supported by the Legacy Fest.

“There’s a lot of BS going on in the world and the country. You can get sad about it and pout,” Levingston said. “Madam Walker addressed the issue.”

Levingston runs Walk & Talk, historic walking tours allowing participants to literally step into Indianapolis’ Black history. On June 20 he led a group away from the music and crowd of Legacy fest and around the block, stopping at historic centers of the community such as Lockefield Gardens and the former Second Christian Church. On the tour, Levingston spoke about the impact of redlining and zoning restrictions on reducing the neighborhood’s density and businesses. In the Green Book, a travel guide listing businesses safe for Black Americans, most Indianapolis stores listed are on Indiana Avenue. Now the block is mostly residential. A closed convivence store is vacant and the Second Christian Church is a single-family home.

“Imagine if they won’t let people borrow for decades and decades how much wealth that drips out of a community,” Levingston said. “That’s why when you walk around you just see parking lots.”

Julia A. Royston, a Legacy Fest block party vendor, has been publishing books for 18 years. Many of the books she publishes are centered on increasing representation and putting out voices other than traditional publishing houses.

“No matter what season of the world we’re in, there’s still an opportunity for us to tell our story our way,” Royston said.

Lucy Tobier is the politics reporting intern for the Indianapolis Star. She can be reached at lucy.tobier@indystar.com or on X at @TobierLucy