A crowd at a previous Juneteenth Festival (Photo: CBJ VISION)
State and community advocates, institutions for change, and lawmakers are highlighting the historical significance of Juneteenth as it’s being observed nationwide.
While many believe the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, marked the end of slavery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture reminds us that it “could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.” Not all enslaved people were considered free until June 19, 1865. On that day, 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform more than 250,000 enslaved people they were free. This holiday is celebrated as the formal end of slavery in America.
“Juneteenth is a reminder that freedom has not always extended to every life in America. Today, we reflect on how far we’ve come to extend liberty & opportunity to all people while continuing to move toward a more perfect Union,” Gov. Bill Lee said on X.
Part of celebrating Juneteenth is to not only understand the significance of the date itself, but examining its place in Black and national history. Rep. Justin Jones emphasized the importance of these sentiments, however he took to his X account to remind the public that legislation is prohibiting this.
“Today we commemorate Juneteenth, but in Tennessee my Republican colleagues passed a bill banning schools from teaching students about the history of why,” Jones stated. “The fight for true liberation continues and we must never yield to white supremacy.”
This year also marks a major milestone in the state as lawmakers voted last year for Juneteenth to be recognized as a paid holiday. As a result, many offices are closed such as Crosstown Arts, Memphis-Shelby County Schools, and Memphis Public Libraries.
While many are closed, places such as University of Memphis are encouraging the public to visit the National Civil Rights Museum (NCRM), which has free admission from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
“Today, we mark the Juneteenth holiday, a defiant declaration of freedom and triumph over oppression,” NCRM said. “As we celebrate this pivotal moment in history, we must ask: What freedoms are we still fighting for? At the National Civil Rights Museum, we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who have fought for liberation … Let’s unite in the pursuit of justice and equality for all, knowing that our actions today will shape the history books of tomorrow.”
The Greater Memphis Chamber said this holiday is a reminder of the “ongoing pursuit of racial equality and equity.” It also said it is “re-committing to fostering diversity and inclusion in our business community.”
“Juneteenth doesn’t just celebrate freedom — for so many Black Memphians (and Black communities across the nation), it’s a day to unapologetically celebrate Black joy, expression, accomplishment and so much more,” We Are Memphis said in a post. “From the movers and shakers who are leading the path to a better and brighter Memphis to the young Memphians ready to make their mark on our city and the world, this day is all about celebrating the legacies they’re creating.”
There are lessons to learn from Grandmother Opal Lee. With her silver crown of curls, she is a Black Texas Rose endowed with vision and courage at the age of 97. From 2016 to 2021, Grandmother Opal traveled countless times from her Fort Worth home to Washington, D.C. Her mission was to encourage politicians to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Grandmother Opal also led annual walks across America’s highways, collecting almost two million signatures for her Juneteenth petition. She waged a tireless pursuit in her ubiquitous canvas sneakers.
Dreams do come true. President Biden signed a law making June 19th a federal holiday in 2021. Juneteenth, as it is called, commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers brought the news of freedom to the enslaved in Texas, two years and six months after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
The 13th Amendment abolished Black servitude. However, Juneteenth is the touchstone that represents the end of slavery in the collective American mind. People around the globe call Opal Lee the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” On May 3rd of this year, President Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as she is a symbol of dignity, goodwill, and liberation. The medal is the nation’s highest civilian honor.
I went on a journey to write Opal Lee’s picture book biography for children during the summer of 2020 after the George Floyd murder. We had a lively conversation in December of that year. When our talk ended, I understood with clarity why Juneteenth is a celebration for every American. It is not a “Black holiday.” It is an American holiday. And to that point, here are five lessons that I learned from Opal Lee — the esteemed Grandmother of Juneteenth.
Grandmother Opal said, “Juneteenth is a time for reflection.” Just as for Black Texas families in 1866 at the first Juneteenth anniversary in Galveston, the day remains an occasion to remember our collective past and express gratitude for the tribulations survived. It is also a time to honor Black history-makers and freedom fighters, whose courage paved a road to this present day. When speaking of roots, Grandmother Opal said it was her maternal grandfather who gave her a love for history and the preservation of family ties. His name was Zack Broadous. Born in 1871, he was a Texarkana farmer, landowner, and preacher. Juneteenth is a time we can all reflect on our specific ancestors who believed in the liberation of the mind, body, and spirit.
Beyond ancestral meditations, Grandmother Opal acknowledged the loud rejoicing that surely rang across Texas in 1865 after Black generations had survived more than 200 years on the auction block. As the holiday inspires images of such overwhelming joy, Opal Lee taught me a second lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a day of music and praise.” Since Glynn Johns Reed’s inaugural Memphis Juneteenth celebration in 1993, each year the Memphis Douglass Park is found teeming with African drumming, local bands, and gospel singers who make the Juneteenth holiday a jubilant Memphis affair. There is no Juneteenth celebration without music. And as I spoke with Opal Lee about Memphis music and our Juneteenth traditions, she quipped, “Twerking is for young people. I do the holy dance!”
During our talk, I asked about food traditions. Grandmother Opal replied, “Juneteenth is a jamboree of feasting and fellowship.” From the first Juneteenth celebration in Galveston until now, many Juneteenth hosts prepare vibrant red foods that Black Americans were denied during servitude. Juneteenth guests might feast on tangy ribs, strawberry pie, and Big Red Soda that is bottled in Waco, Texas. In this new age with various dietary options, Juneteenth tables are also decked in vegan and vegetarian victuals, fancy tarts, and craft mocktails.
When questioned about her ability to form coalitions toward making Juneteenth a national holiday, Grandmother Opal said a wise elder gave her an example in building friendships beyond her neighborhood. That mentor was the late Lenora Rolla, a historian who founded the Tarrant County Black Historical & Genealogical Society. As we spoke about the impact of mentorships, Opal Lee served me a fourth lesson. She said, “Juneteenth is a time for listening to the elders.” Wherever she travels, Grandmother Opal welcomes children. She speaks with them and reads to them in schools, at public libraries, and at Juneteenth celebrations. “If we want the world to survive, healthy and whole,” she said, “we must take time for children. Listen to them.”
I asked one last question. What do people misunderstand about the Juneteenth holiday? Opal Lee taught me a fifth lesson: “No matter who you are, Juneteenth is a unifier that represents freedom.”
These final words served as my guidepost. Immediately, I knew what I would write for children about Opal Lee and the Juneteenth holiday. Hear me with your heart: Juneteenth is bigger than Texas, singing, or dancing bands. Juneteenth is freedom rising, and freedom is for everyone. Juneteenth is for you and me!
Alice Faye Duncan is a Memphis teacher who writes for children. Her Juneteenth book, Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free, has sold 95,000 copies since 2022. Her new barnyard blues story, I Gotta Sing, is available now wherever books are sold. She can be reached at alicefayeduncan.com.
Curved acrylic nails will be paired with Queen Charlotte-approved corsets, poker faces will be tested in a Spades tournament, and thousands will pour over to Orange Mound Tower to celebrate the culmination of Memphis-based art organization TONE’s annual Juneteenth weekend. A B.A.P.S-themed gala and a family reunion bash are the crowning jewels in this festive event honoring Black culture and freedom.
Kelsee Woods dances to a performance by singer-songwriter Talibah Safiya. (Photo: Noah Stewart)Talibah Safiya (Photo: Noah Stewart)
For Black Joy
According to TONE, Juneteenth is the day that “Black Americans were finally free to be seen as humans, and not objects.”
While many believe the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, marked the end of slavery, the National Museum of African American History and Culture reminds us that it “could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control.” All enslaved people were not considered free until June 19, 1865. On that day, 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform more than 250,000 enslaved people they were free. This holiday is celebrated as the formal end of slavery in America.
When considering the cultural significance of Juneteenth for Black Americans, it’s fitting for TONE to host a celebration here. Victoria Jones, TONE’s executive director, says the organization is dedicated to holding a space for Black people to tell stories through film, visual arts, photography, and more, and it seeks to “heal a city and its trauma around racial injustice and all the things that come with that, but really, truly centering the joy of Black folks in that space and lifting that up through innovation.”
“However Black folks are showing up and telling their stories, we’re really working on capturing them, lifting them up, and putting them on a platform here at TONE,” Jones adds.
The organization has been around for about eight years, originally launched at Crosstown Arts as an initiative to diversify their audience. But once TONE saw the capacity their work had for building community and empowering Black people, they hopped around nomadically. However, Jones says, after having negative experiences at “legacy institutions” and “predominantly white organizations,” they realized they needed a place of their own.
“Realizing that those spaces were never really truly intended for us, even as they are trying to work on extending invitations to Black folks, we thought it would be in our best interest, and necessary for our sustainability, to open up our own space.”
On January 11, 2019, TONE opened the complex known as TONE HQ — at 2234 Lamar Avenue — to more than 2,500 guests from around the city. Since then, the organization has hosted a number of events — film screenings, exhibitions, and concerts — that have become cemented as pieces of Memphis iconography.
“Really any creative outlet that we can create for Black folks,” Jones says, “so we can continue to lift up the stories being told, in and around Memphis, and highlight the artists who are doing the courageous work of telling those stories.”
In 2020, the organization purchased property across the street from where their gallery currently sits. With this addition, they began to imagine how the property could serve as a “beacon of cultural innovation for Black folks,” and how they could center and lift up the work of “creatives and small business entrepreneurs.” TONE recently added an additional three acres to the property, making it 10-acres, where they are envisioning endeavors related to food, agriculture, health and wellness, education, job readiness, art, culture, tech innovation, and more.
The story of TONE itself is representative of the story of being Black in America. It’s a story that only those with lived experiences are qualified to tell. And when these stories are told, recurring themes of perseverance, resilience, and redirecting play prominent roles in planting seeds to honor those before them, and to empower both current and future generations.
Jones explains there is often a separation between the present and slavery, as though it existed “some very, very long time ago,” but that is not the case. She tells the Flyer that her Big Mama (grandmother) was raised by a man who was enslaved as a child. Jones says in her own youth, her understanding of Juneteenth was that it was a community service day. And while she agrees there is merit in choosing that as a way to commemorate the holiday, the day serves as a true reason to celebrate. Juneteenth is a time for Black Americans to celebrate their ancestors — and all there is to look forward to.
“N*ggas is free!” Jones exclaims. “That’s not always been true. Very recently that was not true. So to have the opportunity to give folks night after night of different experiences and touchpoints to just lean in and think about, honor, and celebrate the ancestors that got us here, the generations that it took for us to experience this level of freedom, and the celebration necessary to know that you gotta keep going. Sometimes we just need to be able to touch down, do a little dancing, so we can keep a good fight.”
At the center of Jones’ conversations on Juneteenth is Black joy, and when talking with the Flyer she makes sure the conversation concentrates on the freedom of Black people, as opposed to what they were being freed from.
JuDa Ezell with David Hammons’ African-American Flag (Photo: Kai Ross)A small group of festival attendees pose for a photo. (Photo: Noah Stewart)
For Culture
TONE’s Juneteenth: A Family Reunion, will host a variety of events from June 15th through 18th. The theme of a family reunion may seem obvious to those whose summers consisted of line dancing while wearing T-shirts adorned with family members’ names linked on a tree — and who know the realness of the “Cousin! What’s Up” gif of late rapper Tupac Shakur. However, to those who have no familiarity with these experiences, it may be less obvious.
“Families were destroyed during slavery,” Jones says. “Folks were stealing children and selling them to people.
“Folks were stealing mommas and selling them to people, stealing daddies and selling them to people, so the tradition of family reunions truly comes out of this desire to find your people, know your people.”
She also says family reunions for most people are an invitation back to the South, where many Black people’s roots are planted, and the decision to promote the celebration as a family reunion is an invitation to bring people together to “celebrate and love on each other for a weekend.”
TONE’s Juneteenth commemorations have been an evolution, with the first event being a Juneteenth Gala in 2019 where they invited Memphis musicians, visual and performing artists, and dancers to help energize the festivities.
The intention has always been to celebrate and showcase Black culture in the most authentic light, and that first TONE Juneteenth celebration was nothing short of that, with Chef Fran Mosley catering a spread of soul food favorites like fried chicken, macaroni-and-cheese, and peach cobbler, which Jones says “leans into what makes our people so special.”
This year’s weekend follows a format launched in 2022, the first year TONE was able to host both a gala and a festival. The weekend kicks off on Thursday, June 15th, with a screening of Robert Townsend’s 1997 film B.A.P.S (Black American Princesses), starring Halle Berry and Natalie Desselle, at Malco Studio on the Square in Midtown at 7 p.m., in collaboration with Indie Memphis.
In keeping the momentum of an authentic family reunion experience, TONE will host a Spades tournament on Friday, June 16th, with a prize of $200, where they’ll use custom-made playing cards. “The Spades tournament is a night for folks to come out and enjoy one of the most sacred card games known to man,” event organizers say. “It is a night for people to converse and convene over good music, food, and drinks. It is a night for all the big and all the bad to come out and claim their seat at the table.”
“If we’re going to have a family reunion, then we gotta have the Spades going,” Jones says.
A festival attendee matches the energy on their shirt. (Photo: Noah Stewart)Chef Araba Esoun embraces family. (Photo: Noah Stewart)
For Empowerment
For those who can’t seem to get enough of the Black American Princess aesthetic and are privy to the words of Lady Whistledown, the Juneteenth Gala will provide the ultimate experience. The Cadre Building Downtown will take attendees “from the Met Gala to the Mound” with some “ghetto fabulousness” in the mix.
“I haven’t had a number of opportunities to dress up and go to a gala, put on a gown, and all that,” says Jones. “Truly, what other reason than the freedom of my people. You know I gotta step out for that.”
The gala has become a staple in TONE’s Juneteenth weekend, as it was the organization’s inaugural celebratory event in 2019. “It was bursting at the seams then,” says Jones. “That’s how we knew we couldn’t do it here [at the TONE gallery] no more.”
Last year was the first time TONE pushed for a theme for the gala. They went with Afrofuturism, and people showed up in their “futuristic, beautiful, Black garb,” Jones says. This year, with the B.A.P.S theme, they anticipate baby hair galore, grills, and about 1,001 different approaches to corsets.
“If you could imagine a Met Gala with a Memphis twist — and when I say ‘Memphis’ I mean the actual city of Memphis, not the things we pretend it is, but true Memphis sh*t — I think that’s what you can expect.”
While these aesthetics may at times be shunned, Jones says it’s being embraced — and in a royal setting. “The emphasis has truly been on royalty, like Black folks showing up in this space of royalty. A lot of our belief system revolves around the idea that Black folks show up however they show up, and that space is to be honored,” says Jones.
Perhaps the most iconic component of TONE’s Juneteenth celebration is the festival, which was first held in 2021 as a way to celebrate the holiday in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic — a way for TONE to bring the magic of their indoor gala outside.
“I think we hosted over 11 artists, we had the marketplace set up, 90 percent of the vendors sold out, and the ones that didn’t came real close to selling out,” says Jones.
The festival has historically been held at the Orange Mound Tower, which holds special cultural significance for Black Memphians. While the gala has been held at different locations throughout the years, Jones says the festival will always be held in Orange Mound, as the neighborhood was built by the first generation freed from slavery.
“If we’re thinking about the legacy that came out of enslavement, then Orange Mound is literally the most powerful display of perseverance and innovation,” says Jones. “The Black folks that were told they were nothing more than property found a way to build an entire community upon freedom.”
The festival has always promised an outstanding experience (and FOMO potential), and this year will be no different, with headliners Project Pat, Hitkidd, and Duke Deuce and a slate of emerging talent including Talibah Safiya, Austin Crui$e, DJ Nico, Harley Quinn, and more, along with Black-owned food trucks and vendors.
Jones says this is also a moment for TONE to empower Black people economically. “The artists, we pay above what is market rate for the city, probably double for the city of Memphis. The musicians leave with money in their pocket. Our artisans, our makers, are leaving with bread in their pocket, as are the chefs and the caterers that show up with the food trucks. So it’s a beautiful day to celebrate and a beautiful way to make money.”
At its core, TONE’s Juneteenth celebration encapsulates not only the phenomenon of Black joy but also further shines a light on what makes the Black experience so unique and special — characterized by tenacious spirit and dreaming big.
“I can’t think of a single holiday that matters more than the celebration of our freedom, when we talk about Black joy, Black empowerment,” Jones says. “I can’t think of a better opportunity for real.”
For more information on TONE’s Juneteenth: A Family Reunion event (June 15th-18th, various locations), including schedule, lineup, and access to tickets, visit tonejuneteenth.com.
Since its founding in 2008, Playback Memphis has been bringing its improvisational Memphis Matters to Memphis communities with a mission to “co-create and catalyze community well-being, social healing, and flourishing culture,” as their website states. This Saturday, June 10th, Playback Memphis will present a special Juneteenth Memphis Matters with all-Black ensemble for a BIPOC-only audience. Before the performance, the Flyer spoke with ensemble member and University of Memphis dance professor Wayne Smith to learn more about it.
Memphis Flyer: What should audiences expect from the Juneteenth Memphis Matters performance?
Wayne Smith: So, Playback is an improvisational, audience-interactive theater company. The way we interact with audiences is that people in our audiences are prompted to share something and we have a team of performers, or actors as we often call them, and they will enact what the person in the audience shared in a creative way. It’s theatrical and incorporates use of language, movements, and music. It’s multidisciplinary. For this show, we’re looking at this as a commemorative celebration, being in honor of Juneteenth, so we’re looking at people of color coming together to share their experience, place of their identity, who they are.
What will be your role in this performance?
Remember when I mentioned that audiences are prompted to share something? Well, there’s a conductor that does that. So for this BIPOC show, I’m conducting. I’ll ask the questions. [For this show,] we’re very much aware of the importance of honoring and thinking about the emancipation of people who were enslaved and freedom and liberty and what does that really mean? These will be part of some of the questions that I will be prompting from the audience, and people can share from a very personal perspective.
I’ll start with surface-level things, then I’ll get gradually more personal, so people can begin to be comfortable with opening up and digging into deeper things. And it’s amazing how quickly people begin to open up. And then you know, we get the feedback afterwards, and people say that it really helps them, first of all, to share something that’s very difficult, but then to see it honored in Playback in such a very special way. We listen; we really try to listen and not just with our ears, but with our entire bodies. It really kind of helps them to heal.
That sounds like it can be very therapeutic.
It is. Playback Theatre has its roots in drama therapy, so the therapeutic aspect is a real aspect of Playback. Even just being in the audience is so healing because you hear that other people are going through all of these different things. I mean, it could be happy, it could be sad, it could be everything in between. It can be traumatic, it can be completely ecstatic. And I think Playback Theatre gives to us performers as well as the audience. It gives everyone a sense that we’re more connected than we realize.
Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
I will say that all the cast — myself included — we’re all super excited about another opportunity to do this kind of a show [for the third time]. I feel very fortunate to be a part of an organization that fully supports this kind of a show. A part of me feels like there’s not a lot of my folks in this field, so the fact that we’ll have an almost all-Black audience come to see all-Black cast is significant. It’s important for people of color to see that representation in this unique and creative venue.
Playback Memphis will perform Juneteenth Memphis Matters on Saturday, June 10, 7-9 p.m., at TheatreSouth at First Congregational Church. Tickets can be purchased online for $20 until 4 p.m. on the day of the show. A limited number of seats will be available to purchase the night of the show.
If you’d like to “pay it forward,” $40 tickets are also available to cover the cost of tickets for another community member. If you have concerns about ticket costs, reach out to Adriane Hall at adriane@playbackmemphis.org.
From TONE’s 2021 Juneteenth celebration at Orange Mound Tower (Credit: TONE)
Juneteenth will now be recognized as a paid holiday in Tennessee.
The bill was passed by the Tennessee Legislature on Thursday with 61 ayes, and 18 nays.
As the Flyer reported, the bill was sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), but it had stalled in recent legislative sessions due to fiscal concerns.
Information provided by the Department of Human Resources on the fiscal note of the bill assumed that “approximately 4,000 employees earn compensatory time or some type of overtime annually on July 4th. It was estimated that the value of “earned time, based on the hourly rates of employees,” was $691,890.
“Due to multiple unknown factors, the precise amount of any such increase in expenditures cannot be quantified but is reasonably estimated to range from $173 per employee per holiday ($691,890 / 4,000) up to $691,890 for all employees per holiday. Therefore, the annual increase in fiscal liability to the state is up to $691,890,” the note said.
Juneteenth has been observed for 156 years and, according to the Smithsonian Institute, this holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people on June 19, 1865. While the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, the Smithsonian Institute said everyone in “Confederate territory” did not become free until two years later.
“Thank you so much to my colleagues who voted to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday in Tennessee,” said Tennessee House Majority Leader Karen Camper (D-Memphis). “It is so important for us to reflect on the history of our nation – AND for history to be taught and acknowledged. On the road to freedom, every signpost should be celebrated.”
A bill that would change Juneteenth (June 19th) from a day of special observance to a legal holiday was recommended for passage by the Senate Finance, Ways, and Means committee on March 21st. As the Flyer reported, the bill was sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), but it had stalled in recent legislative sessions.
Sen. Raumesh Akbari( D-Memphis,) explained the importance of the holiday, stating that on June 19th, 1865, 2,000 Union soldiers marched into Galveston, Texas, to let all enslaved people know that they had been freed. While the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed two-and-a-half years earlier, Akbari said that Juneteenth marked the true end of slavery for Americans.
Sen. Akbari said that the holiday was not only important for African Americans, but also for other Tennesseans across the state. Senator Joey Hensley (R-Hohenwald,) said that he had asked several people within his district if they knew what Juneteenth was and that very few people knew. Hensley said that he would be voting “no” on the bill. “I don’t think we need to be making a holiday for something that happened in Texas.”
Akbari countered that the city of Columbia, Tennessee, had already decided to recognize Juneteenth as an official city holiday in 2020. But Hensley said that he would be voting “no” on the bill was because of its potential financial impact. “This is going to cost the state $700,000. It’s a holiday that most people don’t know what it is. It’s coming two weeks after Memorial Day, two weeks before July the 4th. I just don’t think we need to make a holiday just because the Federal government does, I don’t think we need to.”
Information provided by the Department of Human Resources on the fiscal note of the bill, assumed that “approximately 4,000 employees earn compensatory time or some type of overtime annually on July 4th. It was estimated that the value of “earned time, based on the hourly rates of employees,” was $691,890.
“Due to multiple unknown factors, the precise amount of any such increase in expenditures cannot be quantified but is reasonably estimated to range from $173 per employee per holiday ($691,890 / 4,000) up to $691,890 for all employees per holiday. Therefore, the annual increase in fiscal liability to the state is up to $691,890,” the note said.
Despite Hensley’s concerns, the bill was recommended for passage.
The Tennessee Senate State and Local Government committee voted to recommend a bill for passage that would make Juneteenth a paid holiday in Tennessee.
SB269 was sponsored by Senator Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and, according to the Tennessee General Assembly, this bill would change the “designation of June 19, known as ‘Juneteenth,’ from a day of special observance to a legal holiday.”
The bill had stalled in recent legislative sessions.
Sen. Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) explained that this holiday is important to not only Black Tennesseans, but also Tennesseans across the state.
According to the fiscal summary of the bill, this would cost almost $692,000 for local governments if they “opt to observe the holiday.” They also said “there will be an unquantifiable permissive recurring increase in local expenditures.”
The fiscal note of this bill assumed this was estimated after information from the Department of Human Resources said “4,000 employees earn compensatory time or some type of overtime annually on July 4th.”
Juneteenth has been observed for 156 years and, according to the Smithsonian Institute, this holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people on June 19, 1865. While the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, the Smithsonian Institute said everyone in “Confederate territory” did not become free until two years later.
From TONE’s 2021 Juneteenth celebration at Orange Mound Tower (Credit: TONE)
Family reunions have long been staples in the Black community. Scholars are unclear as to when family reunions came to be, but many note that as a result of the Great Migration, many Black families were separated, causing them to hold large gatherings to reunite and rekindle.
With fellowship and celebration being major themes of family reunions, it’s a fitting theme for TONE’s Juneteenth weekend. TONE’s chief storyteller, Nubia Yasin, explains that the family reunion theme is reflective of the culture that TONE would like to see built “across the creative community, across the Black community in general, whether you see yourself as a creator or not.
“TONE is very special because it’s not like we’re doing this work for the community, but with the community. With that being said, we don’t know everything. We don’t know everything, and we’re going to get stuff wrong, so we’re leaning on the community to fill in those gaps.”
Yasin says it’s also about collaboration, which she believes that family is about.
“Family is about interconnectivity, it’s about collaboration, and that’s why the theme for our Juneteenth festival every year is a ‘family reunion,’ because we really want folks to feel connected to this work like they would their family.”
Yasin explains that this event serves as an invitation for those who have left the South to come back and find solace and familiarity. In fact, executive director Victoria Jones “hopes that this will be an opportunity for ‘all our cousins,’ so to speak, to come back home and celebrate with their Memphis family.”
“It is for Memphis, but the goal is for the work that we do here will make Memphis a hub for Black creatives across the country and internationally,” Jones says. “One only needs to look at the story of being Black folks in America for a couple of seconds to see how central Memphis is to that story.”
The two-day celebration is jam-packed with events starting with a sold-out Afroturism-themed Juneteenth gala, shortly followed by an afterparty on the Mississippi Queen #3 Riverboat. The weekend culminates on Sunday, June 19th, with the Juneteenth Family Reunion festival in Orange Mound.
According to Yasin, Orange Mound serves as the prime location for an event that celebrates the rich history and legacy of Black people.
“It’s the oldest Black neighborhood, built by Black folks for Black folks, in the country,” Yasin says. “Memphis is a city that is inextricably linked to the story of being Black in America.”
The story of being Black in America can only be told best by those who’ve experienced it. It’s a story marked by continuous triumph over adversity, which is often defined by systemic challenges, and unequal protection from the powers that be.
A heartbreaking chapter was recently added to that story, when a gunman opened fire at Tops Friendly Market Store, which according to NPR, is the only Black-run grocery store in Buffalo, New York. This incident left 10 people killed, three injured, and a community shaken by domestic terrorism.
“The nature of being Black in America is like a persistent state of a mix of emotions. Whether that be fear or anger, or a lot of times apathy, because of fear and anger,” Yasin explains.
“If we stopped ourselves from shining, if we stopped ourselves from smiling, if we stopped ourselves from laughing and celebrating every time there is a threat of danger, we would never have moments to smile and dance and shine.”
Yasin believes it is important for Black people to claim moments to be happy, which is why she believes it is imperative for a Juneteenth celebration to persist, despite recent events in America.
“Systems of oppression are as evident as ever, and I think it’s important to celebrate the little things that make us smile, and build culture around that,” Yasin says. “That’s what makes the hard work of beating back those systems sustainable.”
Orange Mound’s 2021 Juneteenth festival (Photo: Courtesy TONE)
The first years of my Big Mama’s life were spent in a home where generations of my ancestors resided. The eldest of whom was enslaved as a child, her great-great-grandfather. They lived on the same land that my people owned and had existed on since her great-great-grandfather was freed from slavery. Big Mama farmed this land with her siblings, cousins, parents, aunts, and uncles. When the time came for her to venture out on her own, she started a family.
My grandfather was a bit of a rolling stone and left my grandmother to support their five children. She took a job at the Procter & Gamble factory in Jackson, Tennessee, and raised my mother and her siblings there. My mother was a basketball star in Jackson and had an opportunity to play ball at Lane College. After graduating, my mother joined the United States Navy to get out of Jackson. While there, she met my father and they started a family. As successful officers in the Navy, they were able to build an upbringing for my sister and me filled with the privileges of financial security, quality education, and support.
Now my sister and I have been handed a baton, and for the first time in my lineage, since my people arrived in this country shackled and enslaved, we have been given an opportunity to ask ourselves who we want to be and what we want to do. Due to the perseverance and strength of the generations who came before us, my sister and I have been allowed to move outside of what we must do and granted the freedom to imagine, to dream, and to construct lives built on what we want to do. Our collective freedom in this country has been a relay race — every generation compelling us forward toward liberation, carving their own mark into the baton.
We go up for Juneteenth as an opportunity to celebrate the perseverance of our people participating in this relay. It gives us a concentrated moment to lift up our ancestors and celebrate the endurance, the love, and the brilliance displayed during their legs of the race through enslavement, Jim Crow, redlining, voter suppression, lynching, and the prison industrial complex. We lift up the miracle of the Black folks who came before us who found ways to keep dreaming and pushing against all odds, the magic of Black folks who found song and dance despite the violence and persecution this country assigned to them. We lift up the innovation of our ancestors who gave room for our culture while the rest of the country was still debating our humanity. We marvel at the marks that they left on the baton. It takes us out of a vacuum and puts our work in direct conversation with the giants whose shoulders we sit upon. I can think of no celebration greater or more powerful than the one I can share with my ancestors and elders. It’s our moment to watch the race as it comes to us. It’s our running start when we are timing our step with the runner before us and preparing to take off with the baton.
Now we have the baton and it’s time to run like all hell. It’s our moment to push this as far as we can. Our chance to decide what mark we want to leave on the baton. Our chance to figure out how far we can propel our people today. This is our chance to celebrate the innovation and the stamina of today. We get to dream and imagine in this moment and celebrate the potential of the future we will build. With the legacy of our ancestors still powering our step forward, we get to boost off like Sha’Carri. The beauty of this relay is that it’s very much about how you perform, how you show up, and at the same exact time it is about all of us, how our entire team is running and has run. It’s our chance to celebrate getting in step with one another.
At some point in our sprint we’ll catch a glimpse of the next leg. They’ll be timing their step with us the same way we timed ours with our elders. With the same vigor and passion that we ran, we will be tasked with handing that baton off. Timing this hand-off correctly will be a determining factor of all of our journey toward liberation. This means that there will be a chance for us to hang up our armor and rest. We are not running this alone on the front or back end, and we must trust those running ahead to make their own mark on the baton. The exhaustion my team at TONE and I have faced makes the promise of rest worthy of celebration. Our young folks need to know that when it’s time to hand that baton off, it will be done in cheer and in celebration. So we go up for the babies watching too.
Juneteenth is not some fixed day in our past; it’s not a freedom finish line. Instead it is a celebration of the race and of the runners. It is an opportunity to build an altar around this centuries-old baton, a chance to dance and to cheer and to celebrate just how far we’ve come. A chance to celebrate the victories and triumphs of today. A chance to celebrate the next leg so that they will be ready when the time comes to hand it off. Juneteenth gives us this opportunity to celebrate the liberation of Black folks in this country like no other day. We owe it to our ancestors, to ourselves, and to our future generations to celebrate and experience joy like our liberation depends on it.
Victoria Jones is the founder and executive director of TONE, and the co-founder and president of Orange Mound Tower.
Last summer, President Joe Biden declared Juneteenth a federal holiday, making it the first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983. In honor of this year’s Juneteenth, a relatively under-celebrated and under-appreciated holiday, TONE is hosting a weekend celebration, complete with a Saturday night gala and a Sunday festival.
This will be the first time TONE will host these events in conjunction with each other. Kai Ross, a visual artist and marketing manager at TONE, explains that the first (and only, so far) gala was held in 2019. “A gala was always supposed to be the plan,” they say, but due to Covid, TONE wasn’t ready to bring it back until now.
This year’s gala at Beale Street Landing is Afrofuturism-themed, with a request for attendees to wear Afrofuturistic attire. “Come dressed in your best black-tie but put it in like 2060,” Ross says. “One thing about Juneteenth is acknowledging the past to look forward. So we kind of went with a sankofa concept.”
2021 performer Dame Mufasa (Photo: Courtesy TONE)
The gala will feature a keynote speech by artist and TONE board member Derek Fordjour, in addition to a reading by Afrofuturist author Sheree Renée Thomas. Chef Eli Townsend of Sage will cater, and an after-party on the Mississippi Queen Riverboat III will follow.Tickets have been sold out, but if you couldn’t get your hands on a gala or after-party ticket, worry not: The second annual Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival is free and open to the public.
In lieu of a gala in 2021, TONE threw its first festival on the 10 acres surrounding the Orange Mound Tower, the site of the community-focused development project led by TONE founder Victoria Jones and Unapologetic founder James Dukes, aka IMAKEMADBEATS. “We knew we had to do something outside and that was Covid-safe,” Ross says. “We started to think about the fact that a lot of us — even just staff — hadn’t seen each other in so long. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year. And we were like, ‘This is about to be a family reunion.’”
And the family-reunion theme stuck. “It was a very beautiful experience,” they say. “It’s very important to do this celebration in the first Black neighborhood in this country. Just to do it on those grounds is always a special moment when we think about it.”
This year’s festival will include food trucks, vendors, games, and live music. The packed set list, headlined by rapper and Memphis native Duke Deuce, includes the Memphis Youth Arts Initiative Drumline, Mante Carlo, Bodywerk, Talibah Safiya, Texas Warehouse, Hitkidd, and Lukah. For more information, visit tonememphis.org and keep up with TONE’s socials, @tonememphis901 on Facebook and @tonememphis on Instagram.
Juneteenth Family Reunion Festival, Orange Mound Tower, Sunday, June 19th, 5 p.m.-11 p.m., Free.
