Two Eugene anti-racist groups — Black Unity and Black Led Action Coalition — held Juneteenth celebrations over the weekend.
Juneteenth is, as one Black Unity organizer described it a day prior, the “Black Fourth of July.” The holiday — soon to be an official holiday for the state of Oregon as reported by The Oregonian — originated from Galveston, Texas when on June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger announced that the state’s enslaved people were emancipated.
Black Unity
Black Unity held a Juneteenth celebration in Skinner Butte Park on June 19, featuring music, food and guest speakers. It was the largest pro-Black event in Eugene since the May 31 #BlackLivesMatter protest. The event began at 2 p.m. and saw crowds numbering in the thousands throughout the day.
It began with the singing of the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Black Unity chose Skinner Butte Park as the location for their Juneteenth event because of the park’s history with the Ku Klux Klan. Archival photographs show that the letters “KKK” were once prominently visible on the side of the butte. Organizer Clea Ibrahim said hosting an event here to commemorate Black freedom was a way to “take their power back.”
Tre Stewart, who has been live-streaming recent protests, took to the stage as DJ Stoggrd and played music for the crowd. Intermittently, the music would halt while Black Unity organizers and other speakers addressed the crowd about their experiences as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color here in Eugene.
For food, Sizzle Pie brought approximately 70 pizzas. Food trucks — the Peaceful Palate and I Scream for Waffles — tamales and farro salad were available, as well, with an assortment of drinks and Solidari-tea. There was a bouncy slide and face-painting for the kids, an auction of art made on-the-spot by the attendees and members of the Eugene BIPOC Art Collective. Other vendors were also present.
One vendor even sold a legal lean syrup made with melatonin and four types of vitamins, among other ingredients. The illegal kind — a Lil Wayne favorite — is a mixture of either Sprite or 7-Up with codeine and some sort of candy for sweetness mixed in.
In a semicircle, attendees painted on sixteen large canvases spelling out “Black Is Beautiful” throughout the afternoon and evening.
As Ibrahim said they would earlier in the afternoon, the festivities ended with “a little party” and “shakin’ a little booty.”
Black Led Action Coalition
Black Led Action Coalition celebrated Juneteenth with a festival of music, dance, speakers and Black-owned business vendors on June 20th.
Between one and two thousand people gathered at Alton Baker Park at noon to celebrate Juneteenth. Booths had been set up in a semicircle around a stage, selling food, art and other products from Black-owned businesses.
“There are still problems out there that we need to face and it’s good that the younger generation is understanding that there’s still a fight,” a vendor from Bomb Squad Growers, a company that sells apparel, cannabis and services like yoga and self-defense classes, said. “There’s complacency and now is not the time for complacency; it’s time to just believe in who you are even more.”
The event began with a speech from local civil rights activist Lyllye Reynolds-Parker, who talked about growing up Black in Eugene. She said that when she was born in 1946, her parents were listed as white by Sacred Heart hospital, in order to hide the fact that a Black child had been born there. She also stated that the hospital has never attempted to refute her story.
She also said that she was proud of what the younger generation has done, and she knew that things were going to change.
“I’ve done some amazing things in my time but that’s nothing compared to what you’re doing in your time,” Reynolds-Parker said. “I passed the baton, and you know what? It was a good pass.”
Mike Mennenga, an assistant basketball coach at the University of Oregon, also spoke. He said that Juneteenth is about celebration and progress, but not victory, yet. His wife Shanetta encouraged people to vote in local elections.
Another speaker was Dr. Johnny Lake, who introduced himself as “just a little Black boy from Tennessee.” He spoke about the importance and hardships of his education, how he learned from books discarded from white schools and how much his family helped him.
“There have only been two men between me and people who were bought like cows, horses and pigs,” he said.
Most of the rest of the celebration consisted of music performances from local Black artists, like Stormie True and Aminta Skye. The performances continued until 7 p.m., when the event ended.
BLAC was one of the first groups to form in Eugene after the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. It was founded by Madeliene and Spencer Smith, who hosted one of the largest marches on May 31, which brought over 8,000 people.
