Martinsville gears up for Juneteenth celebration

As communities across the country prepare for Juneteenth, organizers of Martinsville’s upcoming event are hoping to put on their biggest celebration yet. 

This is according to Charise Hairston, the executive director of the Martinsville-based Black history museum, Fayette Area Historical Initiative. This marks Hairston’s second year as director of FAHI and the primary Juneteenth organizer, both positions she inherited from her predecessor, Deshanta Hairston.

A Henry County native, Hairston said she did not have a childhood tradition of celebrating Juneteenth. 

Juneteenth is held every year on June 19 and celebrates the emancipation of one of the last groups of enslaved people during the tail end of the Civil War. 

For years, Juneteenth was largely recognized in Texas, but as the decades passed, more communities across the country celebrated it. In 2021, President Joe Biden made it a nationally recognized holiday. 

In the years since, communities across the country have embraced the holiday, and knowledge among Americans has significantly increased. A Gallup poll found that 6 out of 10 Americans now have some knowledge of the once-largely regional holiday. 

Last year’s Juneteenth event brought out more than 1,000 people to Martinsville’s Baldwin Park. Although this was greater than the previous two celebrations, Hairston said she feels it still doesn’t live up to its potential. She said that Juneteenth could beat out the pancake dinner put on annually by the local Kiwanis club as the city’s largest event. 

“This is a free festival,” Hairston said. “You have quality music, you have quality vendors, food trucks and things like that. It should be one of the heaviest attended events, if not the biggest event in Martinsville [and] Henry County.” 

It’s why this year, Martinsville’s Juneteenth event will be held on the Saturday prior. Hairston said that not everybody gets Juneteenth off, and she wants to attract the highest number of participants. 

“If you teach that history and people know where they came from, it can help inspire them and what to do better for themselves,” Hairston said, later adding that some lessons are taught outside of the classroom. “Its important to me that the next generation of students understands all of history and not what they picked out for you to know.” 

Hairston said this Juneteenth’s theme is inspiring our future and will serve as a celebration of local civil rights figures. 

This year’s Juneteenth event will be hosted by former NBA and WNBA players Gary Forbes and Sylvia Crawley Spann. 

It will feature performances by The Family 5, Chukk Gregory, Christoff Hairston and Mya Fountain and Friends, The 2 Live Band, The Fresh Wind Praise Dancers and The Real DJ Smooth from Greensboro, North Carolina. These will be alongside various food trucks and other vendors. 

“We want to show a variety when it comes to the African American community,” Hairston said about trying to represent as much of the Black diaspora as reasonably possible. Putting on a sufficiently representative event is one of the difficulties Hairston had to contend with. 

“After I do all the work to reach out to sponsors, the cost of things have gone up,” Hairston said, adding that it’s all worth it. 

“The theme this year is inspiring our future,” Hairston said. “Once you do that you can truly celebrate freedom.” 

This free event will run from 2 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Baldwin Park, 500 Swanson St.