At first ComoFest, Fort Worth residents celebrate July 4 and 'passing of the baton'

Jul. 4—Old friends hugged each other for the first time in months, sporting Como shirts and singing along with hymns belted out by the Lake Como Community Choir. Kids made their way up a huge rock-climbing wall and flailed around in a bounce house. It had the feeling of a giant family reunion, because that's what it was.

The inaugural ComoFest, held on Bonnell Avenue in west Fort Worth, was more than a July 4 celebration to many of the longtime residents who attended on Saturday evening. For Commodore Timmons, a legendary track coach who received an award for his contributions to the community, the event felt like a "passing of the baton."

"It's a new generation with new ideas," Timmons told the crowd. "Things are changing, and they're changing with it. Keep supporting them, and keep supporting Como."

That spirit of change was in the air as community group LEGACY organized its first major event, which attracted hundreds of people to shop from local vendors, dance amid lawn chairs and hear from candidates running for office in 2022.

"That was unity in the community at the highest level," said Ella Burton, the president of the Lake Como Neighborhood Advisory Council. "When I tell you, there was something for everybody and every genre. You really had the young mixing with the old."

The event wrapped around 10 p.m., long before gunfire rang out at around 1:30 a.m. and eight people were injured in a shooting on Horne Street, less than a mile from ComoFest's location. Marcus Hudson, the president of LEGACY, said the violence was completely unrelated to the event that his team spent months organizing.

"What happens on the third of July, that's one thing we have to change," Hudson said on Sunday. "Como didn't get in this condition overnight, so it's not going to get out of this condition overnight."

Creating safe environment at ComoFest

Members of LEGACY faced a difficult task: to create a safe environment for families to celebrate on July 3, which serves as a homecoming day for friends who have left the neighborhood but still think of Como as their home base.

Residents have complained in the past about large crowds throwing fireworks and blocking intersections on the night before the parade, the Star-Telegram previously reported.

Finding the balance between using police for crowd control and preventing over-policing of the historically Black neighborhood is complex work, said Estrus Tucker, the facilitator of the Como Leaders Council and a longtime member of the parade planning committee.

"What we want is the right number (of police) so if something escalates, we want to be able to call them," Tucker said. "But we don't want to have big numbers because they're assuming that we're not going to be able to keep the peace."

ComoFest's combination of police officers and volunteer security guards on Saturday was a testament to how Como leaders can organize effectively, Tucker said. One video advertising the event read: "This event was created to show we can come together as a Community and Police ourselves."

Officers helped with blocking off streets for the festivities, and volunteers were stationed at each entrance to ensure compliance with bans on alcohol, fighting and drugs.

"It's much appreciated that the police were there, but what made it work was the buy-in from the community entirely," Hudson said. "Not just the young folks but the old folks as well."

Musician LOA Rooster, who performed at ComoFest and grew up in the neighborhood, told the Star-Telegram that the event was much more predictable than what happens after 10 p.m., when more young people arrive for the informal block party. He said that ComoFest was the more "marketable" side of the July 3 celebrations.

"When I pulled up to this, I knew I was safe," he said. "There's always a leveling up that's happening and ... to have a group of men come together and say 'we're going to do this,' and then holding each other to their word, there's a quality there that I was drawn to."

Building next generation of leaders

Michael Lockhart, one of the organizers of ComoFest, said he could see the festival growing larger next July thanks to the level of demand they saw for this year's event. LEGACY had to turn down vendors and campaigns because of limited space, Lockhart said.

"We got the blueprint down and know how everything works, how it's supposed to look," he said. "We're doing it for the community, and so for them to actually show up, it makes it feel like all of our work is worth it."

What Como needs is "another dozen LEGACYS" to work on solutions in Como, Tucker said. The group recently earned recognition from Fort Worth City Council members for its work on ComoFest.

"I think we have the potential for creating a variety of groups that are engaged in leading events," Tucker said. "We need one that's also younger than LEGACY is now."

LEGACY members hope to create that next generation of leaders to follow in their footsteps. On Saturday, parents signed their kids up to be contacted about mentorship opportunities with the group, whose name stands for Leaders Encouraging Greatness Among Como Youth.

That goal is shared by many Como residents past and present, including Jason Williams, who was selling Como-themed shirts out of a U-Haul truck during the event. Though he now lives in Carrollton and works in the insurance business, Williams said he often comes back to Como to visit family.

"I just want to see people like myself that were born and raised here, that were fortunate enough to graduate, go to college and make something of themselves, to come back and give back," Williams said. "To show this generation that this is not all. There are other opportunities outside the neighborhood that will allow you to come back and do good for the community."

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