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.
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.
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.
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.
