Fights at Buffalo Juneteenth Festival has lawmaker calling for change

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Masten District Councilwoman Zeneta Everhart was prepared for a drama-free festival in Buffalo’s MLK Park for the Juneteenth Festival.

For the most part, it was just that after an exciting parade. However, later on Saturday evening, there was a bit of mayhem.

“I was with my sister and a couple of my other friends, and we were just walking around,  checking out some of the vendors and getting some food and doing what you do at Juneteenth, and so out of nowhere, we were standing right past East Park and out of nowhere it just happened. A stampede of hundreds of young people running through the vendor tables, they were running all through the splash pad. They were everywhere and I’m just like what’s happening. And then we see they were fighting, and someone said someone got maced and you could see that clearly, people had gotten maced. I was just like, what is going on? There was several fights right in front of us,” Everhart said.

She saw elderly people and people with kids trying to get away, including a person in a wheelchair with two young kids.

“She almost got knocked over out of her chair.”

The kids were dispersed by police, only for more fights to break out. 

The area she had for Masten residents in the park was shut down out of precaution. “I can’t sit there and say I had this thing going on and you know someone gets hurt, right? And so we shut down our picnic and and and we left.”

After speaking with police and finding out the kids involved in the mayhem were 11-17, she realized they needed something to do, and that is part of her solution for the festival organizers.

She wants suggestions from the young people as well.

“Three years ago, early 2022, I started meeting with a number of community groups about Juneteenth, and we started talking about what can we do for young people.  We came up with this whole plan to do something for young people in the park.  It was not well received then, but here’s the thing,  I’m the councilperson now and we can force that.  We don’t, I don’t need to ask for permission anymore. We’re just going to make it happen. And so I actually reached out to all of those people that I met with in 2022, and they were like, let’s do it because we have the plan. We already have the blueprint for it. And so we’re just going to make it happen,” she said.

Some ideas include resources in the park for the young people, video game trucks, a space to talk about Juneteenth, and videos for the kids to make.

“I am excited to work with all of our community partners, especially the Juneteenth festival, because we want to make this event what it’s supposed to be. It is supposed to be safe. It’s supposed to be family-friendly. We are supposed to be here celebrating our freedom,” Everhart said.