Date set for 2nd Annual Blue Jamboree

CHARLESTON - The Charleston Maritime Center downtown will play host to the 2011 Blue Jamboree on Oct. 22.

Now in its second year, the Blue Jamboree, or BluJam, was a celebration and community outreach effort created last year by the West Ashley Democrats, a group also now in its second year of existence.

"We organized it both to have a Democratic focus and because Charleston has not had an outdoor stump speech meeting," Mimi Dias, BluJam Committee Chair, said. "It's also the place we announce the Marjorie Amos-Frazier Pacesetter Award."

The award is named after the first woman elected to Charleston City Council and the first woman, African American and non-legislator elected to the Public Service Commission by the S.C. General Assembly. Last month the Charleston County Council approved placing the award in the rotunda just outside council chambers.

The selection committee for the 2011 award, which includes Charleston County Councilwoman Colleen Condon, Herb Frazier, F. Renee Gaters, former Gov. Jim Hodges, Vertelle Kenion, Montez C. Martin, Jr., Carolyn Murray, Robert N. Rosen, Mary Ann Sullivan and Barbara S. Williams, will choose recipients by the end of July.

Last year's BluJam was held at Parkshore Park and featured speeches by most of the local and statewide Democratic candidates seeking office in 2010, including Rep. Jim Clyburn and Lt. Gov. Candidate Ashley Cooper. More than 300 people attended.

"This year, except for the municipal elections, there is not that obvious focus on the candidates, so we're trying to get some good speakers," Dias said.

The committee planning the BluJam have tentatively set the date for Saturday, Oct. 22, but Dias said that date could be adjusted to accommodate the schedule of a "big-name" speaker.

"We've got Jim Clyburn in our corner, so we hope he can help us get someone good," Dias said.

Meanwhile the group is raising funds for the event.

"Everything you do costs money," Dias said. "We have a whole lot of people who have said 'anything I can do...' so we're going to hold them to it."