Simone Spotlight | How to Celebrate Juneteenth
Simone Spotlight | How to Celebrate Juneteenth
JUNE 12th
Afrocentric Oakland’s 14th Annual Juneteenth Festival
Afrocentric Oakland’s beloved yearly Juneteenth Festival returns on June 17 with an array of live music performances, vendors, art installations, and other activities. This large-scale event draws in eager crowds every year, with attendees in their breeziest outfits coming together to sing, dance and celebrate freedom.
This year’s festival will be headlined by Vallejo rapper LaRussell and hosted by writer and poet Prentice Powell, comedian J. Rich and artist-activist RyanNicole.
General admission tickets are $25.
Date | June 17
Location | Lake Merritt Amphitheater, Oakland
Juneteenth in Richmond
The centerpiece for Richmond’s Juneteenth celebrations is its lively annual parade: a joyous procession made up of the city’s local leaders, youth groups, and community organizations.
The parade begins at 10 a.m. at the Booker T. Anderson Center and will be followed by an 11 a.m. festival that includes live music, family activities, and more.
Date | June 17
Location | Nicholl Park, Richmond
36th Annual Berkeley Juneteenth Festival
The longstanding Berkeley Juneteenth Festival returns with vendors and musical performances that include Oakland jazz artist Sonny Fairley, reggae singer Junior Toots, musical trio Guitar Trifecta and other local talents. Since its first iteration in 1987, the festival not only emphasizes the historical significance of Black emancipation but also the steps community members can take today to work toward healing and justice.
Preceding the festival is a weeklong schedule of programming from June 11–17 that includes an open house at Berkeley’s African American Holistic Resource Center, workshops on identifying and working through intergenerational trauma, using legal and policy tools to support formerly incarcerated individuals and how to document and preserve family stories. There will also be a farmer’s market specifically aimed towards supporting residents living in South Berkeley, an area that has seen limited fresh food access.
Date | June 18
Location | Adeline and Alcatraz, Berkeley
GHTech and KitsCubed Juneteenth Tech Summit
When Oakland software engineer and educator George Hofstetter founded GHTech, he aimed to uplift and encourage people of marginalized communities to carve out their own space in the tech world. Hofstetter became aware of the lack of diverse voices in the field and sought to change that, creating a lecture series highlighting Black creativity and the intersections of social justice and technology at various HBCU campuses across the U.S.
In collaboration with KitsCubed — an Oakland organization dedicated to youth-oriented science education — GHTech will conclude its lecture series with a celebratory tech summit on June 19, where people of all ages, backgrounds, and experience levels can network and listen to talks on hacktivism and technology through the lens of Black liberation. The event is free to attend and will run from 5–9 p.m.
Date | June 19
Location | Broadway Event Hall, Oakland