Hundreds celebrate Juneteenth in Uniontown
With games, poems, crafts, food, music and stories of excellence, the community filled Main Street in Uniontown Friday for the annual Juneteenth Unity Fest.
Put on by East End United Community Center and One Voice One Community, the five-hour festival celebrated the 141st anniversary of the day more than 250,000 enslaved people gained freedom in the last Confederate stronghold of Texas.
Main Street was filled with bouncy houses, vendors and food from local chefs. In Storey Square, children sang and read poems to commemorate the day, while banners around the stage celebrated Black inventors, singers, filmmakers and more.
Daniel Adams told the crowd about a quartet of notable singers — Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Sister Rosetta Tharp and Fats Domino — who gave birth to rock ‘n’ roll, but remained relatively unheralded compared to Elvis Presley or the countless British Invasion bands who mined them for material.
He was glad to see the multiethnic crowd, saying when a group of people gains their freedom, it should be celebrated by all.
“Juneteenth is not just a Black holiday, it’s an American holiday,” he said.
Local students also created works explaining what Juneteenth means to them. Amari Williams read her poem “A Light That Still Shines,” reflecting on the slow realization of the promise of freedom, and the communities that kept the flame lit.
“And as we look forward, may we always find/the courage to lift one another in mind,” she said. For Juneteenth is more than a day on the page/it’s a promise of hope we carry through every age.”