The Memphis Juneteenth Festival Celebrates 30 Years with Monthlong Events

 

This drumlins from The Memphis Youth Arts Initiative played
an integral part in last year's Memphis Juneteenth Festival.
(Photo by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – Juneteenth is alive and well in Memphis all monthlong and culminates June 17-18 in the 30th annual Memphis Juneteenth Festival from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day at Health Sciences Park, 26 South Dunlap in the Medical District.

“We have been at the forefront in Memphis for 30 years in terms of celebrating Juneteenth,” said Dr. Telisa Franklin, the festival’s president. “Now that Juneteenth is a federal holiday, we’re excited that everybody gets a chance to celebrate.”

The celebration began June 1 with the Juneteenth Family Empowerment Fair at Ed Rice Community Center in the Frayer community. Job seekers – even budding entrepreneurs – gleaned something from participating businesses, city and county governments, recruiters, schools, and more.

Next on tap is Franklin’s Juneteenth The Musical Stage Play, Saturday, June 10, at the Holloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education, 225 South Main St. Talented singers and dancers from the Young Actors Guild (YAG) will take center stage in this adaptation of the Juneteenth experience after slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been emancipated.  

Chrysti Chandler, who founded YAG 32 years ago, is the play’s creative director. Tickets can be purchased at Ticketmaster.com for either the 2 p.m. stage play or the one at 7 p.m.

“I give kudos to Chrysti for her vision, creativity, and for interpreting the story of Juneteenth from YAG’s perspective,” Franklin said. “This is a signature event for the Memphis Juneteenth Festival.” 

Up next is the Memphis Juneteenth Community Baby Shower Empowerment Luncheon, Sunday, June 11 at The Kent, from 1 p.m.-3 p.m. This event is powered by District 7 City Councilwoman Michalyn Easter Thomas and Franklin.

“The baby shower benefits expecting mothers who need to know where to go for invaluable resources,” Franklin said. “Lots of information will be available.”

There will be information on the health and wellness of mothers and their babies, including breastfeeding and free baby essentials. Topics include “Maternal Mental Health & Grief Trauma Counseling” and “Connections to Resources & Supportative Services.” 

Food, fun and, again, powerful information will be available. Registration is required. Visit www.MemphisJuneteenth.com for more information and details.

The 30th Anniversary Juneteenth Freedom Luncheon is up next, Thursday, June 15, at Holiday Inn University of Memphis, 3700 Central Ave. The grand ballroom is the setting for this 11:30 a.m. luncheon. 

Dr. Raymond Winbush, a noted scholar, activist, research professor and director of the Institute for Urban Research at Morgan State University (MSU) in Baltimore, Md., is the keynote speaker.

“If you haven’t heard Dr. Winbush expound on reparations as it relates to Juneteenth, then you’re in for a treat,” Franklin said. “He is the go-to person for African-American history and culture.”

More information is online at www.MemphisJuneteenth.com.

On Saturday, June 17, the Juneteenth Freedom 2.5 Run/Walk commences at Health Sciences Park. The 2.5K Run/Walk is significant because it took 2 ½ years before the slaves in Galveston, Texas, learned they’d been freed.

There’s a Kid Dash as well for runners ages 2-11. Medals will be awarded in each race. Participants can register online as well. 

Also on June 17, the first day of the festival, there will be a Juneteenth Greek Stroll Off. Fraternities and sororities from Historically Black Colleges and Universities will step, snap, or stomp in spirit and pride.

Other highlights of the first day include the Juneteenth Youth Showcase featuring majorettes, drummers, dancers, singers, and cheerleaders. Altogether, the two-day festival features a variety of entertainment, including arts & crafts, food vendors, a car and bike show, and activities for seniors and children.

The Memphis Juneteenth Festival is a 501c (3) organization and one of Memphis’ longest-running festivals. Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland recently proclaimed June 17-18 as “The Memphis Juneteenth Festival” and “claim this the official Juneteenth festival in the City of Memphis.”

Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris also claimed Juneteenth to be the official festival.

Momentum Builds as Juneteenth Plans Schedule of Events

 

Ekpe Abioto, a noted Memphis musician who plays the djimbe drums
and other instruments, leads a contingent of musicians along a path at Health Sciences Park during last year's Memphis Juneteenth Festival. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

MEMPHIS, TN – The Memphis Juneteenth Festival is building momentum in the Bluff City and solidifying its brand as a major freedom and cultural festival for African Americans.

The festival was boosted last year after Opal Lee, the “Grandmother of the Juneteenth Movement,” visited Memphis, and after President Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act on June 17, 2021.

Telisa Franklin, Juneteenth’s president, noticed an uptick in interest and participation from supporters and revelers in Memphis now that Juneteenth is being observed as a federal holiday, one of 11 in the U.S., commemorating June 19, 1865.

“The work was put in 29 years ago when Juneteenth was first launched in Memphis,” said Franklin, who has led the festival for 10 of those years after the founder, the late Glynn Johns Reed, tapped Franklin to take the reins of leadership. 

“Since then, it’s been an arduous journey, but we kept educating people and building the brand to what it has become today,” she said. “It’s a labor of love and we’re still here celebrating our freedom.”

The Juneteenth celebration has expanded throughout the month of June with “Juneteenth: The Musical Stage Play,” slated June 10, 7 p.m., at The Pursuit of God Church, 3759 North Watkins. Tickets: $10 per person.

Chrysti Chandler is the artistic director. Ricky Floyd is the host pastor.

“Juneteenth: The Movie,” the first for the organization, will be showing at 7 p.m., June 15, at The Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Memphis.

A Community Baby Shower kicked off the schedule of events Sunday, June 5 at The Kent Memphis, located in the Historic Snuff District in Memphis. Attendees were privy to information on health and wellness for mothers and babies, breastfeeding, and free baby essentials. Lunch was served as well.

This year’s festival again takes place Father’s Day weekend, Saturday, June 18, and Sunday, June 19, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day at Health Sciences Park at 26 South Dunlap St. at the intersection of Madison Avenue in the Medical District.

The festival is free to the public.

On June 18, a youth showcase commences with high-stepping majorettes, drummers, dancers, and cheerleaders strutting their stuff – all in the name of Juneteenth. 

The day begins with a roster of singers and entertainers and ends with them. Look for the headliners whose artistry varies from rhythm and blues to gospel, from hip-hop to soul, and jazz too.

The list includes Keith Washington, Queen Ann Hines, Stacey Merino, Marquee of Soul, Men At Large, Mr. Sam, Joshua Rogers, and young talents such as local R&B singers Luvia Gwin and Cortney Boyland, also known as Cortney B.

Music is germane, of course, so is the food. Both are integral to the Juneteenth experience, including the relaxed ambiance of the park setting, Franklin said, where revelers congregate for fun, excitement, culture, and freedom, all to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

“We will have lots of food vendors and a marketplace for participants to shop for garments, jewelry, artwork, Juneteenth memorabilia, and more,” Franklin said. “There will be live entertainment on two stages and a Juneteenth outdoor museum as well.”

A Juneteenth Car Show will also be on display and revelers can take part in the Juneteenth 2.5 Run/Walk. (Two point five means it took 2 ½ years for slaves to realize they were free – from the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation to that day in Galveston, Texas, where the slaves were notified that they were henceforth free.)

Also on that day, a Divine 9 Greek Step Show kicks off at 6 p.m. The high-stepping, high-energy routine performed by fraternities and sororities is the first for Juneteenth. Their display of handclapping, foot-stomping and spoken word is an artform and a staple among Greek letter organizations.

The celebration continues June 19 with the Memphis Juneteenth Official Flag Raising Ceremony and loads of entertainment, food and shopping vendors, for the entire family, Franklin said.

“This is the 29th year that Juneteenth is being celebrated in Memphis. And we will continue the cultural festival celebrating our freedom,” Franklin said. “In fact, it’s been 157 years since General Order #3 was delivered on June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, announcing the end of slavery.”

For more information, contact Telisa Franklin at (901) 281-6337 or visit the website at www.MemphisJuneteenth.com.

Abraham and Franklin Tout Loving Friendship Ahead of Juneteenth

Telisa Franklin and Dr. Jane Abraham

Dr. Jane Abraham grew up in the late 1950s and ‘60s when animus towards Black people was as American as apple pie. “It was horrific,” she said. “I’m 72 years old and I grew up in the middle of all that mess.”

It may come as a surprise, but Abraham is not Black. Her father was full-blooded Lebanese and her mother had come from the oil fields in Louisiana, she said, adding they were very poor.

“We’re brown skins,” Abraham, a licensed clinical social worker specializing in addictions, noted. “The Middle-Easterners have no designation. [So] we’re called Caucasians.”

When Abraham met Telisa Franklin, president of the annual Memphis Juneteenth Festival, “we just fell instantly in love with each other, and it's just been incredible ever since.”

“She shared with me her story of growing up and how we can become friends,” Franklin said. “She understands that it’s going to take different colors to bring about unity.”

Abraham describes diversity as a big salad with all the ingredients. “We don't want everybody to be the same,” she explained. “We want everyone to keep their own culture and to be who they are and to share, learn and grow.”

Now three months into their friendship, Abraham has found common ground with Franklin, who shared with Abraham the message and meaning of Juneteenth, a national holiday commemorating the end of slavery.

“Juneteenth means freedom to me,” declared Abraham, when asked what she’d gleaned from Franklin’s history lesson about Juneteenth, now in its 28th year in Memphis. 

Formerly held at the historic Robert R. Church Park on Beale Street, Franklin engineered a move this year to Health Sciences Park at the corner of Madison Avenue and South Dunlap Street.

Slated Friday and Saturday, June 18 and 19, revelers will commemorate Juneteenth at the park where slave owner and trader Confederate Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife were interred in 1904. 

A crew has begun exhuming their remains and will reinter them at a Confederate museum 200 miles away. The move is being celebrated by many in the Black community as a resounding victory that had been a long time coming. 

The Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization of descendants of Confederate veterans, are overseeing the move. The group had been embroiled in a legal battle to keep the former name of Forrest Park in place and bar the removal of Forrest’s equestrian statue, under which the Forrests were interred.

“Dr. Jane wanted to know how we can learn from the past and how we can embrace the future,” Franklin said. 

Abraham’s own family history is inextricably linked to the terror that the “brown skins” and Black people had to grapple with along with other societal ills that were intended to thwart their advancement.

Her Lebanese father, she said, “…came over on the boat from Beirut in his mother’s belly. He had gone through a lot of prejudicial things growing up in the [Mississippi] Delta. [And] he was really quick to share his experience with us”

There are other experiences that Abraham won’t forget. “My sister and I were reared by African-American women. So, my real first mother was an African-American woman who came in, took care of me, and loved me as her own child, which was an amazing experience.”

Abraham was devastated after “Miss Mattie” died. She was six years old. “That's when I started waking up and realizing that there needed to be some changes,” she said, and decided to take a stand.

She has an affinity for humanity, no matter the person’s race, creed or nationality. But then she is quick to challenge the status quo that Black people are inferior to white people. 

“The African American race is super intelligent,” she said. “But they've been oppressed for so long. That's part of what frightens white people. They're scared. I'm sorry for them.

“A lot of it is based on the fact that many white people are terrified that Black people are going to take over everything and they won't have anything left for themselves. That's just ludicrous.”

Abraham hopes that people will see each other as friends instead of enemies. Juneteenth is just the beginning.

“My life experience has brought me to a place where I’m going to live by it and die by it,” she said. 

Juneteenth Festival Moves to Park Where Klan Leader is Buried

Memphis girl group Karma delighted the audience at Memphis
Juneteenth Festival in 2019. This year's festival will be held June 18
and 19 at Health Sciences Park. Gospel sing Earnest Pugh will be the
headliner. (Photo by Wiley Henry)

There is some irony in relocating the Memphis Juneteenth Festival from the historic Robert R. Church Park on “World Famous” Beale Street to Health Sciences Park, where Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest and his wife, Mary Ann Montgomery Forrest, are entombed.

The move is official after Telisa Franklin, Juneteenth’s president, announced April 30 that the festival has partnered with Memphis Greenspace, Inc., the non-profit organization that maintains the park.

The new location is deemed a fitting move for the annual festival in Memphis, Franklin pointed out, which is a national holiday in the United States commemorating the end of slavery for African Americans. 

This year’s festival will be observed June 18 and 19 at Health Sciences Park (formerly Forrest Park) at the intersection of Madison Avenue and South Dunlap Street, near the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Earnest Pugh, a gospel singer and native Memphian, will headline the festival. Music is a staple at Juneteenth, along with food vendors, something for children, and an educational component.

“That park has so much significance. It was not what we were then,” Franklin said. “For Black people, Juneteenth means freedom. Now you’ll see Black people and white people working together on the burial ground of a slave owner and trader and Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Forrest lived and died in Memphis Oct. 29, 1877. He was 56.

“…This will be the first year that the day is recognized by the state, county, and the city of Memphis,” Franklin continued. “Although the day is recognized, Black people in America are still fighting for our lives and economic freedom.” 

Van D. Turner Jr., director and president of Memphis Greenspace, Inc. and Shelby County Commissioner representing District 12, said he was happy to help orchestrate Juneteenth’s move to Health Sciences Park. 

“We need redemption. We need hope. We need a path forward. We need to dig out of poverty. We need to dig out of crime,” he said.

Turner was at the center of controversy in 2017 when Memphis Greenspace purchased the park from the city of Memphis and another Confederate park for $1,000 each. Shortly thereafter, the equestrian statue of Forrest was removed Dec. 20 from its base. 

The move was triggered by a nationwide hullabaloo over the takedown of Confederate monuments and the affront to Black people who believed the monuments were erected to keep the legacy of slavery and white supremacy alive. 

“We are turning the pages of history today,” said Elaine Turner, director of Slave Haven Underground Railroad Museum, a 19^th century home that was part of the Underground Railroad. “We are rededicating this park. Juneteenth means freedom.... We are reclaiming our history on this ground.”