Denver’s Juneteenth Music Festival will only be one day this year due to corporate sponsors pulling back

Corporate sponsors have pulled back support for Denver’s Juneteenth Music Festival, forcing organizers to cut an entire day of programming and turn the weekend celebration into a one-day event. 

The JMF Corporation, the nonprofit that runs the festival, has also launched an emergency fundraising campaign to raise an additional $80,000. 

“We know that values shift and priorities change—but our community stays rooted,” wrote Norman Harris, the executive director of the JMF Corporation, in a statement. “We’re not scaling back our commitment, just the footprint. And with our community by our side, we’ll rise to meet this moment and keep Juneteenth alive in the streets of Five Points.”

The event will now take place on June 15 in Denver’s Five Points neighborhood. The festival will continue to feature live music, a showcase of Black-owned businesses and spaces for the community to connect.

It’s yet another blow to a large-scale summer festival in the city’s historic Black neighborhood.

In November, the city canceled the annual Five Points Jazz Festival and replaced it with a grant program for year-round events. 

Meanwhile, the Pride Parade has also lost major corporate sponsorship as companies pulled back from funding programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion following President Donald Trump’s crackdown on DEI.

Celebrating Juneteenth has been a Denver tradition since 1966. The now-federal holiday is a celebration of the date enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed.