LOS ANGELES (CNS) – Santa Monica will conduct its inaugural Juneteenth Gathering Friday and 34th annual Juneteenth Celebration Saturday to mark the federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of slaves in the United States.
The gathering will center around wellness and community through music, film and the healing arts. It will feature sound immersion, live music, an art workshop and DJ sets by Linafornia and Black Girls Love Vinyl.
The event will also include a 4:15 p.m. screening of “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions,” at the Miles Memorial Playhouse. The genre-bending film and video art project was described by the Sundance Institute as “a massive, hypnotic tapestry of the Black experience across the diaspora, inspired heavily by the intellectual legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois and his vision for the Africana encyclopedia.”
The Sundance Institute is best known for conducting the Sundance Film Festival.
The event will run from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Christine Emerson Reed Park and the Miles Memorial Playhouse in the park.
The celebration will be held from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday at Virginia Avenue Park and showcase a mosaic of Black musical genres, including an interactive drum workshop with Project KnuckleHead, and soul, funk and jazz performances.
There will also be community resource booths, food trucks, local Black- owned small businesses and vendors, and all-ages art activities celebrating Santa Monica’s Belmar neighborhood, which was demolished in the 1950s through eminent domain to make way for the Civic Auditorium and Civic Center.
The theme is “A Legacy of Liberation: Honoring Our Resistance and Resilience,” representing the past and ongoing fight for equity and justice for Black Americans.
“By expanding our Juneteenth offerings, we hope to welcome even more people to celebrate in Santa Monica and experience the rich music, art, and cultural opportunities,” Mayor Caroline Torosis said in a statement.
A 2 1/2-mile walk in Pacoima will honor the woman dubbed the “Grandmother of Juneteenth.” Registration for the annual “Opal’s Walk for Freedom” will begin at 7:30 a.m. Friday and the walk at 9 a.m., both at Hillery T. Broadous Elementary School in Pacoima. It will conclude at Pacoima City Hall.
Walks are planned in at least nine other cities, including Fort Worth, Texas, which the event’s namesake, Opal Lee, is set to participate after missing last year’s event for health reasons.
Lee, who will turn 100 in October, campaigned for decades to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, a quest that came to fruition on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, with Lee in attendance for the signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.
Lee is known as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth” for her walking campaign she began when she was 89 to get the day be declared a national holiday. Lee describes herself as “just a little old lady in tennis shoes getting in everybody’s business.”
The distance honors the 2 1/2 years it took to inform the enslaved people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Sept. 22, 1862, declaring all slaves free in Confederate territory as of Jan. 1, 1863.
Organizers have set a goal of having at least one branded Opal’s Walk for Freedom in all 50 states by 2030.
A Juneteenth celebration including live entertainment and storytelling will begin at Poncitlán Square in Palmdale at 11 a.m.
The Leimert Juneteenth Community Celebration in Leimert Park Village will feature cultural programming, community engagement and reflection. The celebration will run from noon to 7 p.m.
A Juneteenth celebration for youth and families will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Robert Frost Auditorium in Culver City with live performances, celebrity and influencer participation, youth-focused programming and community giveback activities including grocery and diaper distribution, organizers said.
Admission at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and La Brea Tar Pits will be free Friday in honor of Juneteenth.
Additional celebrations will be held Saturday and Sunday.
A celebration will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Jackie Robinson Park in the unincorporated community of Sun Village adjacent to Palmdale.
A block party celebrating Juneteenth will be held in downtown Long Beach from noon to 8 p.m. with live music on two stages, food vendors, a Black Business Tour with shuttle service and activities honoring the legacy of the VIP Records record store chain.
The Culver City Juneteenth Celebration will run from noon to 3 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Park Field. It will include the singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” dance and musical performances, a DJ, a brief program on the history of Juneteenth, reading and children’s areas.
“Lift Every Voice and Sing” has been promoted by the NAACP as the Black national anthem since 1917.
West Hollywood’s Juneteenth Celebration from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at West Hollywood Park will highlight local Black-owned and businesses and nonprofit organizations and commemorate and honor the historical significance of Juneteenth.
“Juneteenth is not only a reminder of a painful chapter in American history, but it also serves as an opportunity for people to recommit to combat all forms of modern-day slavery, human trafficking, and racial injustice,” according to a statement from the city.
Attendees are highly encouraged to RSVP for the free event via Eventbrite at shorturl.at/Odoeq.
A Juneteenth Celebration and Concert will be held Sunday at Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach from 2 to 7 p.m., with WST CMPLX performing from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The nine-piece music collective blends jazz, R&B, neo-soul and hip- hop.
Juneteenth marks the anniversary of Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger reading General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, which began, “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
U.S. post offices will be closed and mail will not be delivered Friday. All federal offices, schools and banks will also be closed.
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