Manhattan Beach Celebrates Juneteenth With Party, Concert
Jun 22, 2024 11:04PM ● By Jeanne Fratello
Members of the Manhattan Beach Black Scholars Union pose with advisor Janet Allen (left) and former Manhattan Beach Mayor Mitch Ward at the Juneteenth celebration at Polliwog Park on Saturday.
Drawn in by lively music, food, history, and family fun, several hundred people came out to celebrate Juneteenth on Saturday at Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach.
The event, hosted by the city of Manhattan Beach and the Black in Mayberry organization, featured jazz music, a dance troupe, food trucks, kids' activities, presentations by local organizations, and products for sale from locally owned Black businesses.
"I'm loving this day - the sunshine, the music, and everything - it's just perfect," said Donné Ward, president of the Mira Costa Black Scholars Union, one of the organizations that worked with the city in planning the event.
"I'm so pleased," added Janet Allen, a school psychologist at Mira Costa High School who serves as the advisor to the Black Scholars Union. "I remember a year ago when we were talking about this,
just trying to envision it, and now it's come to fruition."
The event followed a more somber ceremony held on Wednesday - the actual date of the Juneteenth holiday - at Bruce's Beach Park. This is the first year that the city has held official Juneteenth events.
"It's been a
very special day in my family for decades, and to see Manhattan Beach celebrate Juneteenth is just tremendous," said Mitch Ward, a former mayor of Manhattan Beach who had led the initial efforts to have the city recognize the history of Bruce's Beach. "It's very pleasing to see us here at this
particular moment. This year I've seen more Juneteenth celebrations throughout the South Bay and throughout L.A. than I've seen before. It's an attempt to
educate people. And for the little kids it's really important that we never let them
forget just how hard it was for Black people to get their freedom, even
after the law that had been passed that gave us our freedom."
The event drew people of all races, with ages
ranging from toddlers to seniors. Attendees sat with picnic blankets and
umbrellas and feasted on B & R Burgers, Energy Smoothie Bar, and specialties from Dotty Rollz, "the Black goddess of eggrollz." Multiple musical performances ranging from jazz to hip hop also drew participants up to dance in front of the stage. (Among the featured jazz performers was drummer and Manhattan Beach resident Clayton Cameron.)
"It's just a pleasant day, there's a lot of people out, there's great music - This is Manhattan Beach and I'm just so pleased to be here to
share it with everyone today," said Mitch Ward.
Giving presentations at various tables at the event were Black at
Mayberry, Culture Club South Bay, the Mira Costa Black Scholars
Union, and historian Alison Rose Jefferson, who was on hand to talk
about her book "Living the California Dream: African American Leisure
Sites During the Jim Crow Era."
(Members of Culture Club South Bay with Alison Rose Jefferson (second from right))"It is a wonderful thing that we are here recognizing our American history, said Jefferson. "It's very important for our nation to have this recognition; and for Manhattan Beach
it's really important to recognize its history as well - being that they have
their own African American history that wasn't so positive in terms of
the Bruce's Beach debacle."
Jefferson continued: "For this area, it's very important to recognize the local history and the struggles that have
gone on, as well as connecting with the national experience of Black
liberation struggles. [Juneteenth] is a day of recognition and celebration but it's
also a day of recognizing how much more we need to do to in terms of
making for a more equitable society."
Following the celebration at Polliwog Park, a smaller event at the Manhattan Beach Library featured performances by Ina the
Sunshine Storyteller and Chazz Ross, and the inauguration of
the Bruce's Beach Commemorative Collection with local historian Anthony Lee.
Juneteenth in Manhattan Beach
Juneteenth (a portmanteau of "June Nineteenth") is celebrated as the
official end of slavery in the U.S. It marks the day when federal troops
arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to bring the news that slavery had
ended. (Although this technically occurred two and a half years after the signing of the
Emancipation Proclamation, the news had taken that long to get to Galveston.)
However, in Manhattan Beach, ever
since the revival of the Bruce's Beach issue,
the question of
celebrating Juneteenth has become an issue fraught with emotions. On the
one hand, Bruce's Beach Park has become an important symbolic location
for honoring Black history in Southern California; and on the other
hand, the park's immediate neighbors have become weary of the renewed
attention to and/or activities being held at that relatively compact
park surrounded by numerous residences.
The city then received an anonymous private pledge for a donation of
$15,000 for Juneteenth events for each of three subsequent years (2024, 2025, and
2026), with a request for matching funds from the city. Chevron also served as a lead sponsor this year.
Mira Costa students, especially members of the Mira Costa Black Scholars Union, have been especially involved at City Council meetings, speaking out about the need for a Juneteenth celebration in Manhattan Beach.
Planning for the city's Juneteenth celebrations has
been in the works for more than a year. In April 2023, City Council
considered, and then rejected the idea of holding a Juneteenth celebration in 2023, in favor of allowing time to give more thoughtful preparation for events in 2024.
In preparation for the 2024 event, the city held two public conversation/"listening" sessions
and created a survey for residents to weigh in on the celebration.
The
Juneteenth survey was open for five months, between July and November 2023.
In
October 2023, Mira Costa students responded to the survey en masse,
providing more than 1300 of the 1700+ votes cast in the survey.
Mira Costa students, especially members of the Mira Costa Black Scholars Union, have been especially involved at City Council meetings, speaking out about the need for a Juneteenth celebration in Manhattan Beach.
The city eventually decided on hosting two events; the first one a smaller ceremony at Bruce's Beach Park to be held on Wednesday, June 19, and the second one the larger celebration held at Polliwog Park on Saturday, June 22.
The Mira Costa Black Scholars Union went on to help plan the activities and music for both events. For Saturday's event, Donné Ward said that his group had chosen to focus on childrens' activities, handing out Juneteenth-themed bracelets and tattoos at their booth.
"I wanted to mainly focus on the kids of Manhattan Beach so they will grow up
and know what Juneteenth is about," Donné Ward said, adding that he was looking forward to participating in the event again in the future. "In years to come, I'm ready for this celebration to get bigger and bigger."
Juneteenth 2024 [10 Images]
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