This Friday is Juneteenth, an annual celebration of the official end of slavery in the United States. This year, there’s a new level of importance that we as a community come together to honor the what this day marks and represents.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when freedom reached enslaved people in the deepest parts of the Confederacy. This happened when Union General Gordon Granger freed slaves in most remote areas of Texas, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
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This represents the long road we as a country have taken — and the long road we face ahead to reach equity and justice at a time when institutionalized racism remains deeply entrenched in our systems. It’s a day when we grapple with our history, analyze our present, and strategize on our way forward into the future.
This year, companies such as Twitter, Lyft, BuzzFeed, Vox Media, and Nike are taking the lead in publicly committing to making Juneteenth a paid company holiday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. There are calls for Juneteenth to become an official federal holiday, too. If your company hasn’t followed suit, why not gather your co-workers and call for it to do so? Hella Creative has curated some tools, such as a Juneteenth employer request template, so you can get that conversation started.
If you’re looking to show up and get involved to honor Juneteenth, the Bay Area has found ways to forge ahead—despite the pandemic—in honoring the Black community while amplifying and celebrating the unique history of this holiday. Let’s hope that this celebration of Black American freedom creates a shift in the ways we think about racial justice.
Happy Juneteenth.
Juneteenth Protests and Gatherings
Protests and marches for racial justice and the Black lives Matter movement are still continuing strong. Here are a few that are happening on June 19.
- Justice for Juneteenth at Lake Merritt: Across from Knoll Park, 5 p.m.; family friendly.
- Lake Merritt Amphitheater Juneteenth Celebration and Fundraiser: 4–7 p.m.
- Black Mass: A Juneteenth Gathering: Lake Merritt Amphitheater, 7 p.m.
- Juneteenth West Coast Port Shutdown: Car caravan, 10 a.m.
Juneteenth Presentation — Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era
Virtual, Friday June 19, 12:00–1:30 p.m.
A online gathering to honor Juneteenth and learn about the legendary San Francisco musicians of the Fillmore Jazz Era.
Back in the 1940s and ’50s, the Fillmore District in San Francisco was a refuge for Black people looking to escape Jim Crow laws during the Great Migration. The neighborhood developed one of the most bustling jazz scenes on the West Coast, attracting legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. In the book Harlem of the West, authors Elizabeth Pepin Silva and Lewis Watts celebrates the height of the historic Fillmore jazz district by bringing you back in time with rarely seen historic photographs andnewly minted interviews that let the neighborhood tell its history in its own words.
This Friday, to celebrate Juneteenth, you can join this virtual Zoom event to hear a conversation with authors award-winning documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin Silva and photographer, archivist, and historian Lewis Watts. The online event is presented by the Museum of the African Diaspora, Heyday Books and the San Francisco Public Library. You can register here.
An Unapologetic Juneteenth Celebration
Oakland, June 20, 2:00–5:00 p.m.
This event aims to be a day of healing and cultural celebration.
Oakland is celebrating an unapologetic Juneteenth at Mosswood Park. Presented by the city’s first Black-owned crystal botanica, Queen Hippie Gypsy, and BBQ’n While Black, the event is meant to be a time for community healing and wellness while honoring this historic day. Both hosts celebrate Black excellence and create space for building community. The gathering actively welcomes community partnerships and volunteers. There will be live music and food. Masks and social distancing required.
Fall Heroes, Rising Stars: A Juneteenth Celebration Through Dance
Virtual, Saturday, June 27, 6:00–7:30 p.m.
Through the power of dancers in their forties and fifties, this uplifting celebration will have you singing in your seat and reflecting on history for weeks.
The Grown Women Dance Collective, a space for former professional dancers to share their collective experience, is hosting an event featuring those now retired from renowned companies such as Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Complexions, and more. This event aims to bring the world of dance together to honor great Black voices like Prince, Nipsey Hussle, Maya Angelou, and Aretha Franklin.
The collective, founded in 2009, seeks to create intergenerational, cross-cultural, and cross-class interaction through dialogue, dance, and wellness programs. Its main goal is to celebrate diversity, resilience, and, most importantly, self-empowerment. This event will be live streamed on the collective’s Facebook page; donations welcome.
The Other Side of COVID: Juneteenth Celebration
Saturday June 27th, 2pm-6pm
A gathering to celebrate the historical moment of change and vision of new world as we emerge on the other side of COVID-19
Hosted by the Juneteenth Collective, this celebration will be at Mosswood Park and will be a day of celebration, freedom, healing, Blackness, family, dancing, music, community, collective dreaming, hope, and a feeling of returning HOME. There will be live art performances, vendor stalls, food as well as a PPE (personal protective equipment) donation drive. If arriving early, there will be an open mic starting at 1pm. This event will practice safe social distancing and masks are a requirement. This program will be live streamed on the collective’s instagram starting at 3pm. Gathering in love, community and joy, please come out and enjoy this event.
