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Dallas will have its first march in celebration on Juneteenth this year thanks to a group of local organizers who wanted to mark the day that enslaved people in Texas found out about the Emancipation Proclamation by President Abraham Lincoln that made them free.
Elite News and the Blair Foundation are hosting the Juneteenth Celebration, March and Festival on June 19. The 3.2 mile-long march will begin at 10 a.m. at William Blair Jr. Park and end at Fair Park, where the festival will begin.
Darryl Blair, publishing editor of Elite News, said the free event is meant to not only celebrate Juneteenth, but to engage the community through over 225 vendors providing entertainment and wellness.
“It’s a march in peace, not a march in protest,” Blair said. “It’s a march in celebration, not a march in conflict. It’s a march that culminates in engagement, encouragement, enlightenment, education and entertainment.”
Though Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation freeing enslaved people was issued for Jan. 1, 1863, the word did not reach those in Texas until over two years later. The holiday originated on June 19, 1865, when the freedom of enslaved people was announced in Galveston.
Ever since that day, Juneteenth has been celebrated all across the country, especially the South.
This year the organizers hope several Dallas events will raise awareness not only of Juneteenth but of the inequities Black Americans face today.
One of the activities announced Thursday is a panel discussion on Alzheimer’s disease and health disparities in the Black community with the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth and their Black Alzheimer’s Brain Study.
“We are going to talk about why is it that the Black and African American community is actually being challenged by Alzheimer’s more than any other community,” said Pat Bailey, representing the study at a news conference.
Other activities are Dallas Summer Musicals performing music from the Broadway show Wicked and an exhibit by the Negro League Baseball Museum in Kansas City that will have over 400 items.
Walmart will also be there providing first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine.
Following the Saturday festivities, the Blair Foundation and Elite News will host a golf tournament Monday at the Golf Club of Dallas owned by Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship.
For Darryl Blair, who comes from a family of leaders in the Black community, it is important to preserve and commemorate Black culture in Dallas.
“Juneteenth, you got to recognize, is where our freedom came from,” Blair said. “That’s where we were able to fight through all of the other obstacles that were put before us, like Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, because we were free, we had an opportunity to fight.”
Joe Seabrooks, the president of Dallas College’s Cedar Valley campus, shares a similar view. He said the important takeaway of Juneteenth is what the arrival of new information meant to African Americans.
“When that information came to Galveston, it created a new set of possibilities for people. And when you leave this event we want you to leave here with new sets of possibilities. You have an army of folks in the community, including Dallas College, here to support you on your journey.”
COVID-19 protocols will be in place, but Blair is most excited to have the opportunity to come together again.
“Nothing will ever return to normal, the way it used to be, but there is some semblance of normalcy that people can come out and congregate together and have a good time,” he said.