Madison’s 34th Annual Juneteenth Day Celebration: Rediscovering the Diaspora
Annie Weatherby-Flowers co-founded Madison’s Juneteenth Day Celebration 34 years ago in Penn Park.
By Jonathan Gramling
Thirty-four years ago, Madison’s Juneteenth Day celebration was founded by Mona Adams Winston and Annie Weatherby-Flowers and was held in Penn Park in South Madison. This dynamic duo helped with the effort to have Juneteenth Day established as an official Wisconsin holiday. And throughout the years, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, Madison’s Juneteenth Day has been an expression of African American heritage and culture, which has made it Dane County’s premier Juneteenth Day celebration. It’s not a holiday. It’s a passion.
Annie Weatherby-Flowers, head of Kujichagulia-MCSD, is concerned about the fading sense of community, especially among the community’s young people.
“It’s about community,” Weatherby-Flowers said. “It’s about family. It’s about village. There is a young man on social media who talked about the power of water when you concentrate it. If you put a little water here and a little water there, there isn’t much of an impact. But if you concentrate it, it can burst and go through concrete. What we have done as Village people, is we have assimilated to individualism, which is not our culture. We grow in family and unity. We have gotten away from that because we are doing some of the American capitalism kinds of thinking where you don’t count past your first cousin. We need to know that family and community is what has helped us survive and succeed.
And so this year’s Juneteenth, titled Collective Liberation and Transformation, looks at some of the cultural qualities that link African Americans to Africa and the Caribbean.
“The Heritage Tent will go back to the way it was planned years ago with Sister Fabu and representation of all of those communities,” Weatherby-Flowers said. “The Elders Speak is going to be a combination of elders from those communities talking about the liberation and transformation of the communities over the years because we don’t talk about Black resilience. We don’t talk about social justice and empowerment over the historical landscape and listening to and learning from older folks’ experience. Our young people are individualized and very assimilated because they didn’t have to go through the segregated South or the segregated North. So having some conversations around that shared experience will promote the character issues of Blackness. That is our pitch, our tone, our faith, our rhythm, our creativity and our food. Having some of those conversations and helping our children identify what Blackness is, the characteristics that transcend the African Diaspora.”
And it wouldn’t be a shared Diaspora without music.
“I have Bruce Alfred, Miss B and some others doing some traditional African American blues music and jazzy blues,” Weatherby-Flowers said. “We will also introduce Gil Scott Herron and some of the acoustic things that he does. We have Alexander Adin who is working with the African Caribbean community to pull together some singers and do some music from the African community so that we can look at some of the shared rhythm and shared food. It’s about trying to bring that back stronger again.”
The Main Stage is where it all kicks off. And it will be filled with music throughout the afternoon as different musicians hit the stage to perform the wide variety of African American inspired music.
“The Main Stage, of course, has our Juneteenth Day Band,” Weatherby-Flowers said. “It also has an emcee. It has a tribute to Tina Turner, Ramsey Lewis and Michael Henderson. He was a prolific guitarist and a creative writer. He wrote and sang. But he died in 2022. We always try to look at folks who passed away and honor them. And then we have our young people are going to open up with the Black National Anthem with their drumming. And then we are looking at things historically from slavery to contemporary times. There is some rhythm and gospel kinds of things. There is blues, jazz, R&B and at the end, hip hop and spoken word. We have about nine young folks who are going to close the stage out with their brand of music and how they express themselves. One of the things that we forget is that we always use artistic expression to deal with adversity, to deal with racism and deal with oppression, but also to increase our faith and to build resilience. I’ working on some issues. Dr. Chris Walker is doing a piece for our Collective Work.”
Everything kicks off at 10:45 a.m. with the Juneteenth Day parade, which starts at Fountain of Life Church and ends at Penn Park. There is the Children’s area anchored by Women in Focus and the Old Skool programming under the Pavilion with Jackie Hunt. There is the Church Tent and Teen Tent plus about 80 vendors who will have items to sell and information to give. And of course there is some down-home cuisine being sold by seven food vendors.
“Wherever there were strong Black communities, there was entrepreneurship that would thrive because we bought from them and supported each other,” Weatherby-Flowers said. “And I was thinking about the Black church. We used the Black church for gatherings.”
For one day, at least, that village of people comes alive at Juneteenth Day in Penn Park on June 17th. Come experience the moment.