Juneteenth Jubilee

Description

Juneteenth Banner-Raising Dedication Tuesday, June 16th • 3-3:30PM South Pleasant Street | Next to Amherst Town Common & 17th Annual Juneteenth Jubilee Friday, June 19th • 3-6PM St. Brigid’s Auditorium | 43 N. Prospect St. | Amherst, MA 01002 Amherst, MA, June 9, 2026--On Friday, June 19th from 3-6PM, the Black Business Association of Amherst Area (BBAAA) along with Sankofa Gumbo present the 17th Annual Juneteenth Jubilee incorporating Mass Humanities' Reading Frederick Douglass Together program. A banner promoting the Juneteenth event will be hung over South Pleasant Street in Amherst starting Monday, June 15th. A dedication ceremony for the banner-raising will be held Tuesday, June 16th at 3PM on South Pleasant Street next to the Town Common. Amherst Town Council Vice President Ellisha Walker will be present to make remarks. More on Juneteenth Jubilee event Friday, June 19 The keynote speaker is renowned historian Dr. Amilcar Shabazz. State Representative Mindy Domb will give remarks during the award ceremony when honors will be bestowed to the New England Chapter Female Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) Kathleen Anderson receiving the inaugural Extraordinary Leadership Award and UMass Amherst 21st Century Leader Charles Walker-Hoover receiving the Youth Excellence Award. Juneteenth Jubilee will include drumming, dancing, an interactive fashion show and a vendor marketplace. There will be open mic for spoken word, hip-hop performances and inspiring gospel music. Africana Bowl and Talk of the Town will prepare food for the community buffet. BBAAA member Alysia Bryant of Carefree Cakery is commissioned to do two cakes—one for Juneteenth and another to celebrate BBAAA’s tenth year anniversary of providing networking, mentorship and technical assistance to local entrepreneurs. BBAAA President Pat Ononibaku remarked: “We are grateful to our sponsors in helping make possible an exciting Juneteenth program centering the power of community, conversations, joy and the arts. We dedicate this Juneteenth to the late oral historian Dr. Demetria Shabazz who grew up in Galveston, Texas. Sharing Juneteenth among the people in Amherst was among her passion projects when she and her family settled here 20 years ago. BBAAA—celebrating our tenth anniversary this year—is excited to help usher in the 17th Annual Juneteenth Jubilee as we take on local struggles for racial and economic justice.” Donations for Hadley Black fire survivors are welcome and will be collected at the event. Additionally, Juneteenth t-shirts will be available for sale to support BBAAA youth-engaged programming. Juneteenth Jubilee sponsors are Amherst Cultural Council, Mass Humanities, Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, Greenfield Northampton Cooperative Bank, Greenfield Savings and UMassFiveCollege Federal Credit Union. — Juneteenth marks the historic moment on or around June 19,1865 when Union Army soldiers entered Galveston, Texas with news of freedom coming from the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863. — Dr. Amilcar Shabazz is a professor in the WEB DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst. He is the former president of the National Council for Black Studies and is a leading voice in local and national reparations work. He is a co-author for a newly released book In Defiance: 20 Abolitionists You Were Never Taught in School. He is the founder of Sankofa Gumbo and is an officer with BBAAA. — BBAAA was founded 10 years ago by a small group of black entrepreneurs to increase visibility, promote resilience and facilitate connections to capital, investments and growth. BBAAA is a recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a growing membership. — Cofounded by the late Dr. Demetria Shabazz, Sankofa Gumbo, Inc. is an Amherst, MA based 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to celebrating, educating, and preserving the stories, foodways and cultural traditions of African-descendant people both locally and globally.