Winooski holds its second annual Juneteenth celebration
Wamama Wa Afrika performs at Winooski’s Juneteenth celebration on Sunday, June 19, 2022. Photo courtesy of City of Winooski.
WINOOSKI — Residents in Winooski speak more than 30 languages, but one language united Vermont’s most diverse city this Juneteenth: music.
Food vendors, musicians, and residents gathered in Rotary Park last Sunday to listen, dance, and enjoy the Juneteenth, which commemorates June 19, 1865, the day that the last enslaved people in the United States were proclaimed free. African Americans have long celebrated the day, but it was only last year that Juneteenth became federally recognized as a holiday.
“We all want to gather together to share love of Black culture and all different cultures, listen to some great music and be together as a community,” said Lauren Johnson, general manager of Waterworks restaurant and board member of Downtown Winooski, which organized the event. “It’s something to celebrate.”
Sunday’s festivities made up the city’s second celebration of Juneteenth. The first came last year, following increased national interest in the holiday after months of unrest over the 2020 murder of George Floyd and other Black people killed or mistreated by police.
Organizers of the event felt spotlighting music was a way for folks to come together to honor Black history and the anniversary of emancipation.
“Music is universal,” said Craig Mitchell, board member for Downtown Winooski and booker for the event. “You put on a beat no matter where you're at, and if the beat is good, people will dance to it. That's really the catalyst to bring folks into the fold to talk about what Juneteenth means.”
KeruBo Webster and the Winooski School Chorus, Wamama Wa Afrika, DJ Hazard (Afrobeats), DJ Trinidad, singer-songwriter Myra Flynn, Rajnii Eddins, and DJ Craig Mitchell, all performed in the park.
“With him being established as a musician and an artist and someone who brings people together, [music] kind of became a focal point for us all,” Johnson said of Mitchell.
More than just Black residents recognized and celebrated the holiday, said Mitchell, who is Black. He believes George Floyd’s death spurred action among non-Black people.
“When George Floyd got killed, things opened up for people to go, ‘Oh, my God, you guys weren't kidding. We've missed out on so much, and we're so sorry,’” Mitchell said. “I think that the reckoning of the United States is them saying, ‘Okay, Juneteenth is a holiday.’”
Winooski’s first official Juneteenth celebration came together after a Black business owner asked Downtown Winooski why none existed, said the nonprofit’s director Meredith Bay-Tyack.
Tyack responded by planning the first one, she said.
“We're really happy to be able to provide this outlet,” she said. “It's just Black liberation, Black joy, period.”
Tyack plans to continue to run the city’s Juneteenth celebration in the future, and she wants to ramp it up.
“There's now an expectation that the community wants this to continue happening,” Tyack said. “So, we have to provide a great event for them.”