Juneteenth Freedom Day Celebration
Bushnell Park
Hartford
June 16, 2024
This year’s Juneteenth celebration for the city of Hartford took place on Trinity Street in Bushnell Park, where the Black Lives Matter mural was painted in 2020. The theme for the celebration was to Elevate, Empower and Entertain.
After almost 40 years of being Black, I can sometimes feel like there’s not much else to learn about our history. Yes, there are always new individuals and new achievements to celebrate, but I mean the grand sweep of our experience in this country. Enslavement. Harriet Tubman. Tulsa. Double V campaign. I Have A Dream. Black Lives Matter. It’s not cynicism or fatigue, but more a sense of: I already know this stuff.
But there was a time where I didn’t know any of this. There have been dozens of moments in my younger life when I was inspired by the perseverance of achievements of African Americans and horrified by the savagery of the racism we’ve faced.
I was reminded of that fact as I watched the young people of Hartford performing during the Juneteenth celebration. This celebration is more than just the anniversary of the residents of Galveston Bay, Texas, learning that slavery was over. It’s an opportunity to bequeath a legacy of knowledge and accomplishment to people who haven’t been here as long, to guide them through their own feelings of pride and pain.
In short, it’s an opportunity to elevate, empower and entertain.
The young people themselves shouldered that task as they took to the main stage of the event one after the other.
The first performer I saw was Kayla Marie Pexton, who brought the house down with a spoken word poem about her experience as a Black woman.
“To be Black and woman is to feel alone,” she thundered to the crowd gathered before her. “But to be Black and woman is beautiful. To be Black and woman is to be resilient.”
Next to take the mic was Amirah Muhammad, who sang “The Greatest Love of All” for the crowd. I couldn’t have dreamed of having the confidence she had to sing in front of an unfamiliar group of people, and to do so at such a young age. She’d only just completed her first year of college, but her voice reverberated with the texture and timbre of a much more practiced performer.
The young people were doing more than just entertaining the crowd. They were also practicing entrepreneurship to help empower themselves and their community. I bumped into one of my former teaching colleagues who was tabling the event, and her daughter Marleigh was there at the ripe old age of 12 with her own clothing line.
She started making clothes in 2023, when she saw different styles online and thought it would be a cool thing to do. She uses hearts and different characters that people like in her designs. On one of the shirts it says “I Love Me,” on the back, an elevating and empowering message if I’ve ever seen one. Her clothing line is called Vigotic, although that name is subject to change.
“I could see myself doing this and more in the future,” she said, already laying the groundwork for even greater ventures. To the side of her clothing stand was her friend, Leilani, a 14 year old with her own henna booth. She taught me that henna is actually the name of the plant which creates the dye used on people’s skin. She’s been in business for four months and plans to do more exhibits this summer.
So as it turns out, there are more things for me to learn. I thought that the importance of days like Juneteenth was for elders like me to pass on knowledge to the younger people, but the opposite is true. Instead of presuming to know so much, the day showed me that it’s best to let the children speak and learn a thing or two. Like Amirah said, they are the future.
NEXT
After a busy weekend, Jamil is taking a couple days off. Catch you later in the week!
