Evanston’s sixth annual Juneteenth parade uplifts community, Black legacies despite extreme heat

The Evanston community danced with joy on Saturday during its sixth annual Juneteenth Celebration & Freedom Parade, which concluded with festivities at Ingraham Park celebrating local Black legacies.

Despite the weekend’s extreme heat warnings and the day’s nearly triple-digit weather, hundreds of Evanston residents turned out to celebrate Juneteenth, commemorating Black America’s freedom from slavery nationwide two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Kemone Hendricks, the Evanston parade’s founder and organizer, advocated for Juneteenth’s visibility in the city long before it became a federal holiday in 2021. Since the first Juneteenth parade she hosted in 2020, held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Hendricks said Evanston residents now actively anticipate the event every year. 

“It’s now like a staple of the community, and it’s just something that has become a dream into a reality for me,” Hendricks said. 

The day’s festivities kicked off with the parade’s departure from Evanston Township High School at 11 a.m. — a deviation from past years’ starting point, the Robert Crown Community Center.

From there, the parade’s entourage of nearly 40 performers, community organizations and local businesses danced and honked their way through Dodge Avenue and Simpson Street, blasting hits like Beyoncé’s “CUFF IT” and Cheryl Lynn’s “Got to Be Real” to onlookers’ delight. 

Evanston resident and ETHS alum Janiah Taylor overlooked the parade from lawn chairs. She tried to spot her high school-aged sister in the crowd performing as part of the ETHS Pomkits Dance Team, a group Taylor also used to perform with during community parades.

For Taylor, the annual Juneteenth parade is a good opportunity to strengthen bonds within the Evanston community and see the resources the city has to offer. 

“I spent a good amount of my formative years here, so it’s just meaningful to just see people, see the community, what people are up to (and) the different organizations that are active,” Taylor said. 

Rhonda Scott, another attendee, drove about 40 minutes from her home near Gurnee, Illinois, to attend the parade and visit family in Evanston. 

Scott, who grew up in Evanston, said the parade’s uplifting message and celebration of cultural diversity is one of the reasons she loves and keeps returning to the community. 

“It’s nice to see everybody joining in,” Scott said. “You don’t have to be Black to celebrate Juneteenth. It’s for everybody, it’s part of our history.”

At the route’s conclusion at Ingraham Park, parade-goers were greeted with the Divine Nine Juneteenth Legacy celebration, which featured food trucks, artisan vendors, community resources and an awards ceremony honoring community members’ dedication to justice and promoting the holiday.

This year’s celebration specifically highlighted the Divine Nine, the nickname for the nine historically Black Greek-letter organizations founded at historically Black colleges and universities, whose members have played seminal roles in the Civil Rights Movement and beyond. 

Divine Nine members performed strolling and stepping routines onstage, representing their organization’s values and pride through iconic dances and chants. 

Rayvin Julien, an Evanston resident and the first vice president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.’s Evanston-North Shore Alumnae Chapter, said she most enjoyed the fellowship with other community members and fellow Divine Nine organizations throughout the day. 

“Although we’re part of different organizations, we all have the same purpose, and that’s to serve our community,” Julien said. “It’s a beautiful way for us to come together and serve the same community.”

Special live performances throughout the event also came from Ayodele Drum & Dance, spoken word artists Ollie “Hood Raised” Woods and Shameeka “Darlin’ Mikki” Adams, and The Cooke Book: The Music of Sam Cooke, featuring Darrian Ford.

Evanston’s Reparations Committee also participated in the event by passing out free DNA kits as part of the statewide Family Roots Pilot Program, an ongoing collaboration with the African Kinship Reunion (TAKiR) project. After taking the tests at the committee’s table, African American descendants of enslaved individuals have the opportunity to explore their genealogy as a form of cultural healing, according to La Kisha Latham, a TaKiR community affiliate.

Ald. Krissie Harris (2nd), a member of the Divine Nine’s Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc. and an event presenter, told The Daily it is crucial to keep local Juneteenth celebrations, resources and history alive, regardless of current federal pressures against diversity, equity and inclusion.

“It’s important to remember the past and continually (be) moving forward, and making sure that we just celebrate the wealth of Blackness,” Harris said. 

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