LOIS FERNANDEZ FOUNDATION WAS CREATED BY OSHUNBUMI FERNANDEZ-WEST IN HONOR OF HER MOTHER LOIS FERNANDEZ. LOIS FERNANDEZ CHANGED THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE OF PHILADELPHIA AND THE WORLD WHEN SHE CREATED THE ODUNDE FESTIVAL IN 1975.  ODUNDE IS THE LARGEST AFRICAN AMERICAN STREET FESTIVAL IN THE COUNTRY. LOIS FERNANDEZ FOUNDATION WILL CREATE AND SUPPORT CULTURE PROGRAMS THAT UPLIFT COMMUNITIES. EVERY TIME  YOU DONATE TO LOIS FERNANDEZ FOUNDATION YOU CONTRIBUTE TO KEEPING THE LEGACY OF LOIS FERNANDEZ ALIVE!!!

LOIS FERNANDEZ

FOUNDER OF ODUNDE
April 27, 1936 - August 13, 2017

Lois Fernandez was a proud South Philadelphian, born April 27, 1936 to Malissa White and Ebenezer Fernandez, and raised on Mercy Street, near Sixth and Snyder.

She went to Southwark Elementary School, Furness Junior High School, and South Philadelphia High School for Girls. She had rheumatic fever as a child, and endured multiple hospitalizations. She never let health issues stop her. She remained upbeat and positive, through the many painful years of rheumatoid arthritis, breast cancer, and hip and knee replacements that she endured.

Lois loved to play sports. Because of her rheumatic heart, she couldn’t pass the mandatory physical exam required for school teams, but “being young and crazy,” she played basketball on many championship neighborhood squads. In 1956 she got sick again, and the doctors told her she had to stop playing. But she always “came to play.”

Lois got a political education helping her mother, one of the first African American committee people in South Philadelphia. Lois said: “She always had self-pride, and she just carried herself well. And it was like she was un-bought and un-bossed, you know? My mother was known to be a woman who didn’t take any sh*t.” She could have been describing herself.

Her first job was at the Quartermaster’s, in 1955, as a clerk-typist. She fought racism in hiring and promotion all the time that she worked there.

She was always in the vanguard and fearless. And she had a sense of style. In 1961, inspired by Miriam Makeba, she first decided to wear her hair natural. Lois always loved fabric, and had her clothes made by her friend Ruth Arthur, a gifted dressmaker. In 1964, they opened the Uhuru Hut at 23rd and Lombard Streets, a boutique showing African-inspired clothes.

The artist Leroy Johnson also worked at the Quartermasters. He introduced Lois to other important African American artists: John Simpson, Barbara Bullock, Charles Searles, Walter Edmonds, Joe Bailey and others. She fell in love with their work, and credited them for giving her “an eye for art.”

In the 1960s, she was increasingly involved in civil rights, Black Power, and social justice movements. “We stayed on picket lines,” she said.

In 1970, she became a “Youth Service worker, a.k.a. gang worker” at the Department of Public Welfare. She got herself assigned to her old neighborhood in South Philadelphia “which no one else wanted! When I started working, they said I was anti-agency and pro-kids. I said, ‘Yeah, you got me right.’” That led her into working with schools, around housing—really addressing the whole needs of kids and families.

Her son Adeyemi was born in 1967. Her daughter Oshunbumi was born in 1974.
In 1971, Lois began a fight for “children born out of wedlock. At that time, an unmarried woman received a “short form notification” for her child, rather than a birth certificate from the state. She thought that was totally unjust, and determined to do something about it. It took seven years, but she pushed State Representative Hardy Williams to introduce legislation, and she would not let the issue go, getting public interest lawyers involved. They won the long legal battle in 1978.

As a parent, she also became involved in organizing around education equity, working with the Parents Union (1974-1980).
Lois made her first trip to Africa in 1971. Her visit to Oshugbo was formative. She kept thinking about Yorubas she had met in Harlem nearly a decade before, who were going to the river to honor Oshun.

In 1975, taking advantage of a City program, she held the first ODUNDE festival. (It was called the Oshun festival that first year). She said, “And we had those handmade posters and we were telling people that we’re gonna have this festival on South Street. And they said, ‘Ain’t nobody gonna let no Black folks go across that bridge, shut off that bridge and let y’all walk to the river. And you think you gonna throw something in that river? You are out of your mind.’ We said, ‘Well, we think we gonna be able to do that.’” And so it became a challenge. And ODUNDE rooted and flourished and grew.

Within ten years of the festival’s beginning, the gentrification of the neighborhood had progressed to the point that nearly every year, newcomers’ objections caused problems and Lois had to fight with the city to get the necessary permits. But she always insisted that ODUNDE would not be moved. Forty-two years later, ODUNDE is Lois’ great gift to generations of people for whom it is sacred celebration, family gathering, longstanding and beloved tradition and more. “We are coming to people with culture,” she always said, and that is a gift that endures.

And of course there is much more to be said about this visionary and fighter. She got the bop made the official dance of Philadelphia. Lois valued everyday African American culture and made sure community traditions got the respect they deserved.

And she kept on fighting gentrification in South Central and in larger coalitions. She had the foresight to purchase the ODUNDE building because she saw that they could easily have easily been displaced. Years later, she began to think about building senior housing. She was concerned about unscrupulous developers talking African American elders out of their homes. People should be able to stay in their neighborhood, she thought. Oshun Village is the result.

Lois was an assiduous learner: she received an Associate degree from CCP, and a Masters in Urban Education from Antioch. Over the years, she received certifications in Parent Education, AIDS Training, and Arts Management. She was a teacher, formally and informally. She shared her wisdom through numerous consulting assignments with the School District of Philadelphia, Antioch, and Lincoln, at conferences, and around kitchen tables and meeting rooms when justice needed to be addressed.

Lois Fernandez is survived by her son Adeyemi Fernandez Odara, her daughter Oshunbumi Fernandez, two grandsons Adeniyi and Abayomi and a village of nieces, nephews and great friends.