Juneteenth 2024 by Kelby McIntosh
Hed: Multi-day Juneteenth Event Celebrates a ‘Liberated Future’ of Unity and Diversity
By Kelby McIntosh
With the fifth annual Juneteenth event in less than two weeks, the approach to this year’s festival tackles a broader theme, unlike what Black Humboldt has done in the past. Primarily using this event as a tool for educating the community, the organizations Co-founder, Monique Harper-Desir gives thought to this year’s Juneteenth event and what their broader goals mean for the Black community.
“Our very first Juneteenth, we just had to have our Black partners trust us, that this is what Black communities did,” says Monique Harper-Desir, co-founder of Black Humboldt. “[When] we brought [Juneteenth] here, people were like, ‘We don’t know what this is.”
Since co-founding Black Humboldt in 2018, the organization has been working to build unity through community events like Juneteenth, and in less than two weeks it will host the fifth annual festival, holding events and gatherings across Humboldt, including Fortuna, Eureka and Arcata, to commemorate the freeing of slaves.
Juneteenth is a national holiday celebrating the day the U.S. fully recognized that freedom, and dates to June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers, led by Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were free. President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, but due to the resistance of slave owners and a resulting delay in spreading the news, many slaves didn’t know they were free until two and a half years later.
“I think it really represents how little this country has cared about African people or people descended from Africa that two years could pass,” Harper-Desir says. Because of this mistreatment, Black Humboldt aims to look forward with this year’s festival.
Harper-Desir says, “This year’s multicultural event focuses on the theme of ‘visions of a liberated future.’”
Having lived in Humboldt for nine years, Harper-Desir, like many Black transplants who relocated to the area, says she found refuge in Humboldt County’s natural beauty and rural quietness — a place the opposite of her previous home in New York City. But she was confronted with the stark reality of the lack of Black representation within the community.
According to the U.S. Census, Black people make up less 2 percent of Humboldt’s population, an increase from 2022, in a count that’s still 82 percent white. Nationally, Black people make up make 14 percent of the population.)
This holiday is important and empowering to Black communities throughout the United States, but especially those in Humboldt County.
Eureka NAACP President Kintay Johson says it speaks to the local need for a Juneteenth event that it has survived, despite being started during the pandemic.
“It brings to the forefront the work that Black Humboldt does,” Johnson says. “It’s an opportunity to learn, but also celebrate each other.”
Organizers of this year’s event say its theme was born from the organization’s belief in co-habitation and all-inclusive togetherness. “We’re really trying to create that sense community and belonging, and that we're all interconnected,” Harper-Desir says.
The multi-day celebration will take place Wednesday, June 19, through Saturday, June 22, and most of the events on the schedule are free and family friendly. With free events like Fridays Open Mic and the Cal Poly BSU Cookout offering something for all ages.
Certain events are free up to a certain point, like the all-ages skating and BBQ at Fortuna’s Rohner Park from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., on Friday, June 21, will welcome its first 50 residents for free, or will require the purchase of a ticket, like the hip-hop concert at the RampArt, on Wednesday night from 8 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
One event is even geared towards adults, like Thursday night’s 21-and-over Juneteenth Karaoke Takeover at Richard’s Goat Tavern & Tea Room, June 20, 8 p.m. to 1:30 a.m., they highly encourage costumes and themed outfits on that night.
Black Humboldt also changed the tabling rules this year so organizations that provide a resource that's available and of benefit to the Black community can table and share information in exchange for a $50 donation.
“It gives people that don't belong to the Black community a chance to see our community in action, that connection and what it looks like when we come together,” says Harper-Desir.
Johnson says, “I appreciate the support from the city of Eureka for helping reduce the red tape that makes having these safe Black spaces possible. In a rural community like Humboldt, it says a lot about the work they do.”
The four-day celebration is designed to offer something for everyone, kicking off with the Juneteenth Hip-hop Show at the RampArt in Arcata on Wednesday, 8 p.m. in Arcata, featuring musical acts including Krayzie Bone, Sloan Bone and EmCee Radio Active. The Cal Poly Humboldt Black Student Union BBQ the following day offers free food and refreshments from 3 to 7 p.m. at Jefferson Park in Eureka, while an open mic and art night will be hosted at Eureka’s Friday Night Market at the Old Town gazebo.
But the main attraction is the Multicultural Festival on Saturday, June 22, which will feature some educational opportunities, like the yoga workshop at 10 a.m. and a “Land back and the Movement” workshop at 2:30 p.m., both at Adorni Center in Eureka. But Harper-Desir says, organizers tried to “limit the number of speeches and focus more on the celebration.”
“We're having this local band called Object Heavy, they are punk band,” Harper-Desir says. “The lead singer is this lovely Black man, which, the community loves Object Heavy. We brought the House of Marc Jacobs up because we've got a little like Pride. Every time we platform someone we're hoping that someone with more resources and access than Black Humboldt will say, ‘Oh dang, I love this artist! I want to book them at my event or whatever it might be.’”
“We don't have anything that centers around just us celebrating ourselves. I think that's what change means to me. Personally, I remember growing up you go to the Juneteenth festival, and you just have fun,” Harper-Desir says, noting this is a departure from previous local Juneteenth events. “The goal with our very first one, we were going to fill the park with Black-owned businesses and Black artists. There just wasn't many of us even calling ourselves a small business, and now we have over 22 businesses this year.”
On the Black Humboldt website under the “Juneteenth celebration 2024” tab, vendors, local performers and volunteers, can sign up to be a part of the festival. Johnson says he hopes folks will come out and participate.
“Though we know it’s a federal holiday, don’t just take the day off — use that time to attend the event learn and educate yourself,” he says, noting that he’s lived in Humboldt for more than 20 years and he’s excited to see organizations tailer services and events for the local Black community. “That this is something that is new for Humboldt.”
Harper-Desir says she hopes people leave the events with a fuller picture of the Black experience and what’s possible within it.
“I really hope they understand and grasp how many different types of Blackness there are, but some people think there's one way to being Black,” she says. “Even Black folks think that, and we take [that] to heart at Black Humboldt. We're hoping that at this event, people are like, ‘Wow, this is the future I see for myself as a community member myself, as an ally, and all the ways that the Black community is building.’”
For more details about the Juneteenth celebration starting June 19, visit blackhumboldt.com.
Kelby Mcintosh (he/him) is a California Local News Fellow placed with the Redwoods Listening Post (RLP). The California Local News Fellowship is a state-funded initiative to support and strengthen local news reporting. Kelby’s reporting comes courtesy of a partnership between RLP, North Coast Journal Inc., and Access Humboldt. For more on the California Local News Fellowship, visit fellowships.journalism.berkeley.edu/cafellows.