Juneteenth is a relatively new national holiday. Phoenix and other communities are still trying to figure out how to celebrate it.

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It’s going to be tough to miss Juneteenth in Phoenix this year with celebration after celebration from one end of the Valley to the other.

It could cause concern that Black leaders aren’t cooperating enough, but there seems to be a new level of coordination this year.

“The past few years of Juneteenth have been all over the place,” said Leandres Christopher, a co-founder of Cactus and Culture, a popular networking organization. “And that might work for bigger cities, but it doesn’t really work for Phoenix because we’re already so spread out … It’s imperative for us to come together and pool our resources.”

Christopher and her partners, Terren Wortham and Ambra Jordan, are working on what should be a high-profile event in historically Black Eastlake Park, alongside BlackNet Az, BLM Metro Phoenix and Centered.

Juneteenth this year is more of a season

“The Family Reunion Juneteenth Celebration” started off a few years ago in the parking lot of Grassrootz Bookstore, but now it’s evolved into an all-day affair on June 19 at the Archwood, a 13,000 square-foot, Black-owned, indoor event space in the heart of the city.

“The Family Reunion” will be among about a dozen Phoenix-area celebrations of the nation’s newest federal holiday, which recognizes the end of slavery. (Last year, there were more than 20 Juneteenth events in Phoenix, most of which were clustered on the same day.)

This year, there isn’t nearly as much overlap or competition for attendees.

This year events range from June 10 to June 21. (Call it “Juneteenth season?”) And they span from Avondale to Gilbert with plenty of stops in between.

Black families should be able to find a way to celebrate without as much fear of missing out.

Phoenix is still trying to figure out the holiday

There’s a reason that things got unwieldy in the past.

Juneteenth had been celebrated in Black communities for decades, but it didn’t become a national holiday until 2021.

Cities and community organizers raced to take advantage of the momentum with new events; but collectively, they overdid it.

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Juneteenth (a portmanteau of “June” and “19th”) should be a community celebration, but that can only happen with a concentration of energy in a few strategic places.

“Juneteeth is a relatively new holiday,” Christopher said. “What we’ve noticed is that as a community we’re still trying to figure out what that looks like and how we want to go about celebrating it.”

“The Family Reunion” organizers wanted to bring visibility to lesser-known Black Phoenix leaders and to have some fun doing it.

What does Juneteenth celebrate? You feel like family

Some of the ideas “came out of me being nostalgic about cookouts and block parties in Chicago,” said Kazz Fernandes, who runs BlackNet AZ, a nonprofit aimed at connecting Black people with social services and resources. “How do we get to a block party? … Just a cookout.”

He wants to help create an event “where everyone is family, even when you don’t know folks; people have food, and they’re like, ‘Hey, you can get a bratwurst or hot dog or some ribs or whatever.’

“I don’t know you, but I know you that day; and now we’ve made a relationship with our neighbors.”  

It’s impossible to overstate the value of these sorts of connections, but the need for opportunities to create them is clear. “Family Reunion” organizers said that with weeks to go before the event, they’ve already gotten more than 1,000 reservations.

“I think folks are excited,” Fernandes said. He continued, saying that “If we have events and opportunities to come together, we’re all showing up. We’re hungry for it.”

Yes, especially when the field of options isn’t overcrowded.

Established Black leaders and newcomers seemed to have hit the right balance this year.  

Juneteenth events

Reach Moore at gmoore@azcentral.com or 602-444-2236. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @SayingMoore.

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