Juneteenth festivities are taking place this year amid congressional infringement on District budget autonomy and concerns about the lengths to which the D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser will go to appease President Donald J. Trump.
That’s why, for longtime District resident Thomas M. Blanton, any local celebration requires discussion about the tough road ahead for Black people who, to some degree, are facing uncertain conditions much like what Union General Gordon Granger and thousands of Black Union troops encountered in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865.
“You can celebrate the day as a day that people gain freedom…and you can use it to talk about what freedom means to people,” Blanton told The Informer. “And you would talk about it all across time, [because] all across the nation, [people] don’t really feel free because of the limitations that are put on our existence.”
On Juneteenth morning, Blanton is scheduled to appear at an event taking place at the African-American Civil War Memorial Plaza on the U Street corridor in Northwest. This function, titled “Juneteenth: Celebrate FREEDOM,” kicks off a six-month countdown to the grand opening of the newly renovated African-American Civil War Museum.
Blanton, who’s assisting museum founder Frank Smith and other members of the National Juneteenth Festival in this endeavor, revealed plans to promote a platform created by Million Man Vote, a movement intended to increase civic engagement among Black men.
In speaking about his focus on Black men, Blanton said that this segment of the Black community stands among the most targeted groups in the U.S., especially as it relates to what he called the weaponization of child support to spur incarceration.
“That’s a legal thing that’s been put on Black men [and] it’s not fair,” Blanton told The Informer. “Any man who doesn’t support his children should be counseled, should be ostracized, should be educated, but to put them in jail for that, there’s no excuse.”
Blanton went on to say that, during these precarious economic times, the stakes are even higher for Black men, and Black people as a whole.
“The fact that we don’t get housing, [and] people who have drug problems are not being given fair treatment for drug problems,” Blanton said. “Those limitations are placed on Black people. [Even] with educational opportunities, we’re not given the job opportunities that most people in society are given.”
In 1980, decades before Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law, Blanton, a native of East Texas, moved to the District shortly after lawmakers in his home state made Juneteenth an official state holiday.
In his walk down memory lane, Blanton recounted moments in the nation’s capital with fellow Texan, the late Baba Oduno A. Tariq, through whom he learned to embrace the greater meaning of this African-American holiday.
“People kind of expected that I would be affiliated with Juneteenth, but it wasn’t clear the value of teaching people about their freedom through that particular mechanism,” Blanton told The Informer. “There are real struggles going on. You don’t need a holiday, but I’ve learned to appreciate it.”
Unity in the Midst of Congressional Interference and Economic Woes
Other elements of “Juneteenth: Celebrate FREEDOM,” include: greetings from Smith; drumming and libations led by Nana Malaya Rucker-Oparabea; remarks from spoken word artist and clergyman Minister Nathaniel Douglas; Angie Whitehurst’s historical reenactment of Civil War figure Elizabeth Proctor Thomas; a community roundtable; and a closing party at Thirsty Thursday on U Street.
Earlier this year, while speaking with veteran journalist Hazel Trice Edney, Smith hinted at another program highlight that pays homage to a special group of Black Union soldiers.
“We will celebrate by assuming a team of readers who are going to read the names of about 6,000 African-American soldiers of the United States Colored Troops who went to Galveston, Texas with General Granger on that fateful day in June to announce to the last holdouts that the Civil War was over,” Smith told Trice Edney.
Smith emphasized the Black soldiers incredible contributions beyond that June day in 1865.
“That the 13th amendment had passed, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed,” Smith continued in his explanation. “They stayed there for two years to ensure the newly freed people were truly freed and not re-enslaved to the same corn and sugar cane fields that they had been forced to work.”
One hundred and sixty years later, the African American Civil War Museum faces a hurdle in memorializing the events of the 19th century. The institution counted among those affected by a continuing resolution by House Republicans that froze $1.1 billion allocated for Fiscal Year 2025. The budget maneuver delayed the grand reopening of the African American Civil War Museum, originally scheduled for July 18.
As District residents push back against Republicans, people living and working in marginalized communities are feeling the burn of Trumpian ethnocentrism. Rollbacks on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI) have jeopardized Juneteenth programming this year, including that which the National Endowment for the Arts funded. In West Virginia, Republican Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed legislation defunding DEI programming, including that done in commemoration of Juneteenth.
The same phenomenon unfolded in Scottsdale, Arizona, where local legislators also dissolved the city’s DEI office.
In the District, where Black people, just weeks ago, issued a call for unity during D.C. Emancipation Day celebrations, a group of artists, business owners, organizers and community members gelled together what’s known as the “Juneteenth Jubilee: Freedom & Unity Walk.”
This event, which event organizer Melani N. Douglass said took a couple of weeks, will start on Juneteenth morning at 1201 M Street SE. That’s where she said participants will make their way across the 11th Street Bridge in remembrance of the thousands of enslaved African Americans who crossed the Anacostia River in search of freedom in 1862 after the passage of the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act.
“We are extremely powerful and it is our job to activate each other and to bring what we want from this community,” said Douglass, a founding member of the Anacostia Renaissance Kollective, the entity that planned the Juneteenth Jubilee: Freedom & Unity Walk. “We’ve made this happen [in] less than three weeks [because] all of the businesses, the artists, the visionaries, the community organizations, are coming together and saying we do need this.”
The Anacostia Renaissance Kollective, more than 40 members strong, has conducted meetings that have included members of Anacostia’s business community, including: Nubian Hueman; Anacostia Organics; Sapodilla’s; Caribbean Citations; Grounded; Kitchen Savages; the Go-Go Museum and Cafe; Busboys & Poets; and Sweet Tooth Cafe & Cakes.
Douglass, a curator, artist and poet who’s served as an east-of-the-river artist in residence, said other partners include Empower DC, Capital Waterfront Business Improvement District and the Alumni Bridge Project. Activities planned for Juneteenth include community conversations, healing stations, and opportunities to engage local businesses. In the coming months, Douglass and other Anacostia Renaissance Kollective members will provide similar programming on second Saturdays.
“We’ll be activating this place as a community and working together,” Douglass said. “Because we want to make sure the money that comes into Anacostia goes to the people that are working here. We want them to benefit from what we’re building.”
While the Freedom & Unity Walk also pays homage to abolitionist Frederick Douglass, civil rights figure Gardner Bishop, and geologist Dr. Marguerite Thomas Williams, the event organizer said that she and other members of the Anacostia Renaissance Kollective are just as, if not more, focused on the legions of unknown history makers, past and present, who exemplify the power of collective responsibility.
“We know that this bridge has a potential to really bring energy into the community or take energy out of the community,” Douglass told The Informer. “So when we look at the energy of liberation that came into that community, that walk, and the people that are here, the history that’s in Anacostia. The history that’s along the Anacostia River, and the communities along Martin Luther King Avenue and Marion Barry Avenue. This is a strong history [and] not just around a few people.”
Juneteenth: A Defining Moment for Ward 7
Nearly two miles from downtown Anacostia, Ward 7 community members have a Juneteenth celebration of their own that’s intended to foster unity nearly one year after the Ward 7 Democrats coalesced around then-Ward 7 D.C. Council Democratic nominee Wendell Felder at the end of a tumultuous primary.
For Toya Carmichael, the Ward 7 Juneteenth Parade, the first District-approved event of its kind to take place along Pennsylvania Avenue East, will allow residents to embrace Black history while forging bonds with the people, places and businesses located in that part of the District.
“People tend to live in their silos or within the four or five blocks that they need to travel to go to and from work, or their daily activities, and they don’t always move about the ward,” Carmichael, a Benning Ridge resident and project manager for the Ward 7 Juneteenth Parade, told The Informer. “So part of us having this parade in that corridor was to highlight and bring attention to and [generate] support for our new locally owned businesses there.”
Ward 7 Entities that Carmichael highlighted include: Highlands Cafe & Grill, Miss Toya’s Southern Kitchen and Sharks Fish and Chicken. Revelers, she said, will have a chance to enjoy these eateries after watching drumming circles, Black Greek letter organizations, and a youth marching band from Mary McLeod Bethune Public Charter School, among several other acts.
Those who plan to converge upon Pennsylvania Avenue East can also enjoy a grab-and-go breakfast, refreshments, and, later at Fort DuPont Park, food provided by Safeway and prepared by officers of Metropolitan Police Department’s Sixth District Headquarters.
Other partners, Carmichael said, include Advisory Neighborhood Commissions 7A, 7B, and 7C, along with Building Bridges for America, Aetna, and the Awesome Foundation.
“We were trying to bring people over to that side of the ward,” Carmichael said. “Make sure that they have a safe space to march in the parade, and also hope that they will come back and support that economic center in Ward 7.”
But Juneteenth, a holiday also known as African-American Independence Day, means something much deeper for Carmichael, who expressed plans to expand upon what’s taking place in Ward 7. Fulfilling that vision, she said, is an all-hands-on-deck project that will only be successful with a fully awakened masses at the helm.
“I felt that sometimes in our community, in the District of Columbia, we have too many people that are walking around and not living to their full potential because they still have not received word that they’re free,” Carmichael told The Informer. “So we want to spread that message to them through this Juneteenth parade and use Juneteenth on an annual basis to show people that we’re stronger together, that they are indeed free, and that they have the support from others in their community, in our ward and in our city to live their best life and to do that equally with others.”
