Written by: Kimberly Henry Senior Staff Writer for UNSUGARCOATED Media

June 15,2021

The summer of 2020, with its globe spanning protests for racial justice, was the first time many Americans learned the word “Juneteenth,” the holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. Last year, Juneteenth took place amid peaceful protests and violent clashes with law enforcement, infusing the day of celebration with mourning and rage as well.

This weekend marks the first Juneteenth since that hot summer’s uprising and begs the question—how will we mark the occasion? Stand Up for Justice, a Lake Elsinore based anti-racist organization, intends to unify its whole community in Lake Elsinore’s first ever Juneteenth Celebration at the Diamond Stadium.

Stand Up for Justice has partnered with the NAACP, Storm Baseball and the local government to hold their Juneteenth event, “Unity in the Community,” at the Diamond Stadium on Friday, June 18th. The event, which runs from 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm, will feature Grammy Award nominated reggae artist, Pato Banton, and a host of other musicians and vendors to celebrate and educate their community about African American history.

For some, this history lesson may begin with Juneteenth itself.

“I only heard about it last year,” said Stand Up for Justice director and event organizer, Antoinette Hall. “I was not even aware of my own history. And if I don’t know about it … how does everybody else know about it? This is where we’re trying to set the standards of education.”

Although many assume that enslaved African Americans were freed with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the process was in fact long and contentious. The last enslaved African Americans were finally liberated from Texas on June 19th, 1865, two and a half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, a day commemorated as Juneteenth.

Much of this history remains untaught in public schools and unknown even within Black many communities outside of the South. That is why, although the city is only 6.6% Black according to the census, Stand Up for Justice wants to invite all of Lake Elsinore to their event.

“This [is an] opportunity to sit there and bridge the history, uniting the community, educating [with] celebration,” Hall said.

And it is an opportunity the community seems to be taking advantage of, according to Hall.

“I just checked the last [ticket sales], it’s already over a thousand. We don’t even have a thousand Black people in Lake Elsinore.”

The success of the event for Hall does not just lie in selling out tickets, however, but also the coalition that came together to make the Juneteenth Celebration happen. Making the partnership with the city was especially important, although Hall admits there is still work to be done.

“It’s still a work in progress. We started our partnership getting the conversation going,” Hall says. “But it’s important because we live here… we’re part of the community. We want to sit there and know we’re all looking out for each other.”

Hall sees the event, and the city’s participation, as an opportunity to heal after years of racial and political tension in America. That healing does not exclusively come about through marches and politics alone, however— Stand Up for Justice and their Juneteenth Celebration are powered by artists.

“Art is a form of truth, beauty and goodness,” said Hall, who like Pato Banton, is working double time as a director of Stand Up for Justice and a performer on the Juneteenth music stage.

“After the George Floyd incident and protests… we’re in our emotions, we’re sitting in the moment, we’re venting and we’re feeling and we’re raging, and it’s like, ‘What are we going to do?’ We’re going to create. We’re going to write.”

Just as art helped Hall get through the protests of summer 2020, celebrations like Juneteenth help to keep the movement alive. Nichelle Monroe, another director of Stand Up for Justice and a performer at the Juneteenth Celebration, described the function of celebration in Black people’s ongoing fight for justice.

“Perhaps we’ll drop some jewels of how to carry on in a positive fashion, to strengthen the community, to celebrate ourselves as black people in the world, to make sure that justice is first and foremost,” said Monroe.

Here, Monroe taps into the bitter-sweetness that underpins so much of Black art, culture, and activism in America—the audacity to celebrate joy in the face of centuries of unimaginable heartache.

“This is a form of Black self-respect,” Monroe said, getting teary eyed. “It’s worthy of a celebration, and it’s worthy of remembering… It’s a giant memorial to remember the ancestors on whose shoulders we stand.”

To learn more about Stand Up for Justice and their Juneteenth Celebration, along with their other campaigns for justice, visit their website, https://standupforjustice.us/ .