This Friday, an assortment of performances and booths at Switchyard Park will celebrate Juneteenth. The celebration is in collaboration with the City of Bloomington, the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center and the African American Arts Institute and will be held alongside Bloomington’s Food Truck Friday, a weekly event held in Switchyard Park from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Juneteenth, which became a federal holiday June 17, 2021, commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. Officially marking the day Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation that abolished slavery, two years after it was signed.
One of the highlights of this year's celebration will be a performance from members of Camp S.O.U.L, a week-long music camp for high school students.
In addition to this special performance, Dr. Glorial Howell, director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, said the celebration will include booths from different resources, like the culture center and the African American Arts Institute, as well as Black-owned businesses.
Later in the evening, there will be two other performances by local performers, the Lucky Sevens and Jenn Christy. The Lucky Sevens are a fairly new group to the Bloomington music scene and they play acoustic multi-genre music, while Jenn Christy plays pop rock music with elements of soul.
While the groups collaborating on this year's celebration don’t always intentionally work together, Howell said they always support each other.
“Even if we have separate events for Juneteenth, we always come together to support other entities’ events,” Howell said. “So, this year we decided that it would be really good for us to be very intentional with the collaboration.”
As the director of the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, Howell has done a lot to plan for the event. Like spending her time coordinating with Camp S.O.U.L. on their performance. Howell said she has dealt with a lot of the logistics of the event, especially preparing things for her office to hand out at the event, like calendars and other information about the culture center.
Although Juneteenth became an official federal holiday just five years ago, Howell said that the Black community was celebrating the day long before that.
“That’s what I love about Juneteenth and what I love about us in terms of Black folks and Black culture,” Howell said. “We will celebrate; we didn’t need a federal holiday to celebrate Juneteenth.”
Although celebrations like parades and cookouts have happened before the holiday’s recognition, Howell realizes many didn’t know about the date’s significance until recently. She emphasized the importance of the day.
“Black history is U.S. history,” Howell said. “I think it’s important for folks to come together and honor what that means but also come together and recognize that there’s so much more work to be done in the fight for freedom and the fight for equity for all people.”
Howell thinks it is especially important for a city like Bloomington to have celebrations like these in order to show students that there are resources everywhere, not just on campus. She said building connections with people in the community that work at our city hall and even elected officials is important to show students what resources are available to them.
Howell believes that people who have power and privilege should use it to fight for freedom and hopes that this will be the big takeaway for event attendees.
“I hope they gain a more amplified appreciation for Black culture and just an understanding of the critical need for us to come together and for folks to advocate for equity no matter where you sit,” Howell said.
The free event will last from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday at Switchyard Park. More information about the event schedule can be found on the Visit Bloomington website.
