Poetic Tongues/Fabu
Honor Madison’s Juneteenth Celebration History
I am fortunate to attend most Madison Juneteenth events over the years and always enjoy them. It is a joyous experience to join with community members in honoring our hard-won freedom from American enslavement in 1869. Freedom is worth celebrating every year. While I don’t remember the first Juneteenth celebration I attended or what year I volunteered or even when I became an organizer of the Heritage Tent, I will never forget co-founders, Annie Weatherby Flowers and Mona Adams Winston and their wholehearted commitment to making sure our Juneteenth celebration continued.
Mona Adams Winston no longer lives in Wisconsin. But Madison Juneteenth continues to be led by Annie Weatherby Flowers, her able assistant Janine Stephans Hale, with help from dedicated committee members. The Madison Juneteenth celebration is incorporated as Kujichagulia Madison Center for Self-Determination, Inc. I personally invite everyone to attend this Juneteenth 2025 with the theme of “Black Resistance Together We Still We Rise.”
Juneteenth 2025 is still a safe place to be free and to explore African American heritage. Come be free to say, I am Black, and I am Proud. Come be free to celebrate all that makes us unique and distinct as people. Come be refreshed by marching in a parade with a crowd of Black people in special cars, motorcycles, and walking. A parade that leads to tents where you sit and enjoy spirituality, entertainment, programming for children and youth as well eat as much as soul food as your appetite can hold. Every Juneteenth is a new exploration of Blackness, including learning more about the truth of our contributions to the world, known and unknown.
This year, Heritage includes an exhibition from the Dane County Historical Society, “Unjust Deeds” that illustrates how housing discrimination and unfair restrictions through racial covenants in property meant that Black people could not purchase homes. This is a display that is available the entire day.
Programs starts off with a wonderful singer, Mrs. Mary Henderson, sharing our national anthem, “Lift Every Voice” along with “Freedom. Next, we hear African, Caribbean, and African American drumming. There is a free book giveaway from the Wisconsin State Historical Society. We are fortunate to learn unknown South Madison Black History with Stoney the Road presenters Betty Banks, Pia Kinney James, along with Dr. Richard Harris. Enjoy a free fried chicken wing competition to vote on the best fried chicken wing. There will also be a taste of Caribbean food with Leslie Busby-Amegashie providing a food demonstration and a recipe. She is selling a Caribbean cookbook to benefit the Cari-Am People Relief effort. The day ends with an update from Black Women Artists Speak and an Open Mic. All of these activities will be located across the street at the UW South Madison Partnership Office, 2238 South Park, within walking distance of Penn Park.
Juneteenth is where we remember, explore, discuss, and commemorate the truth of this year’s theme, we are still resisting and we are still rising, no matter who or what. Madison Juneteenth 2025 is also the year to give special acknowledgment to Annie Weatherby-Flowers as a leader and a community activist for justice. She has lovely produced this celebration for our community out of her determination to honor the accomplishments of African Americans. In 2026, she will hand Madison Juneteenth to another organization to run. Annie Weatherby-Flowers has earned many accolades in this city and in our community, yet she deserves much more honor for faithfully maintaining the Madison Juneteenth celebration. Come out and say thank you to Ms. Annie for loving us all enough to produce the Madison Juneteenth Celebration since 1990.
