This year’s Rochester Juneteenth Festival will span two days, and include a concert by local soul and R&B artist Danielle Ponder.
"Juneteenth is more than a holiday. It's a testament to resilience, freedom and the strength of people who never gave up," said Nikia Washington, who is coordinating the festival for the third year. "And here in Rochester, we show up for that, and we always have."
The festival will run June 19-20, with Ponder taking the stage on the second day. Details were announced Wednesday during a news conference that also featured drumming by Nehast Kawaida and a powerful rendition of "Lift Every Voice and Sing" — also known as the Black National Anthem — by Jess BU.
Juneteenth is held June 19th and commemorates the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Rochester's festival is more than two decades old, and this year The Greater Rochester Martin Luther King Jr. Commission and Rochester Area Community Foundation are partnering to put it on.
This year's theme is "Beloved Community," a reference to the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
"Our ability as a community to make progress, whether that's policy or otherwise, is predicated on its people," said Simeon Banister, who leads the commission and is president and CEO of the foundation.
Recent policies coming out of the nation's capital that are harmful to Black communities, Banister said, pointing to last week’s Supreme Court decision "gutting" the Voting Rights Act. That, along with the regression of other rights, demand "deep community mobilizing," he said.
"We're going to have to think differently about some of the economic arrangements that our community is confronting," Banister said. "We're going to have to think differently about how we connect with one another and how we use these cultural moments to mobilize ourselves so that we can transform not only our community, but we can project that into communities that are struggling even more than we are."
Both days of the festival will take place in Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park at Chestnut and Court streets. The first day falls on Juneteenth and runs from noon to 5 p.m. There will be an elders circle, education on the history and significance of Juneteenth, performers, and entertainment.
The second day includes a parade that starts at 11 a.m. at Main and State streets, comes down East Avenue and then down Chestnut Street before arriving at the park. The festival and performances will run from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. The second day also will feature rock climbing, face painting, haircuts, local food, and vendors.
More information is available at racf.org/juneteenth.
