MADISON- People all over the state are gearing up for annual Juneteenth celebrations, and the festivities in Madison look particularly promising. Madison’s celebration will be this Saturday, and will include a parade starting at 10:45 AM at Fountain of Life Covenant Church. The main event will be hosted at the Labor Temple on Park Street.
The holiday celebrates the day, June 19th, 1865, that the Emancipation Proclamation was announced in Galveston, Texas. Southern Texas was isolated from much of the fighting of the Civil War, and slaves in the area were some of the last to be emancipated in the country.
Samara Kalk Derby at the Wisconsin State Journal reports:
This year’s event is at the Labor Temple on Park Street because it’s centrally located on the South Side and provides indoor and outdoor space.
“Things that might need a little more quiet will be inside. And things that are more energetic will be outside,” said Weatherby-Flowers, who founded Madison’s Junteenth celebration in 1990 and has been behind it every year.
A parade will start at 10:45 a.m. at Fountain of Life Covenant Church, 633 W. Badger Road, and will come up Park and Beld streets to the Labor Temple, 1602 S. Park St.
The celebration will begin at noon with a brief program featuring comments by community and political leaders.
The festivities that follow will feature tributes to the legendary Madison drummer Clyde Stubblefield, who died Feb. 18 at 73, and to Al Jarreau, who was born in Milwaukee, and died in February in Los Angeles at 76.
“We are losing our legends,” Weatherby-Flowers said, adding that she wants young people to get a sense of who Stubblefield and Jarreau were.
Young hip-hop musicians who’ve been working with Rob “Rob Dz” Franklin through a program at the Madison Public Library will perform. The program will also feature spoken word performances and dance.
Read more at the Wisconsin State Journal.
