Let’s Talk about Juneteenth

Sonoma County, let’s talk about Juneteenth. Prior to the “racial awakening” and troubling murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, very few in our community paid attention to Juneteenth. For many, this day might be new, but for Black families locally and across the nation, we have celebrated this day without a ton of fanfare rooted in the special celebration with one another. In Sonoma County, Black community members have been celebrating Juneteenth for over 70 years. 

Marteal “Mother” Perry began celebrating Juneteenth in the 1950s on her 10-acre ranch in Southwest Santa Rosa. This event has been carried on by her children and grandchildren, as a honor of her legacy and deeply rooted family tradition.

For the last 54 years, Harold and Nancy Rogers have carried out the annual tradition of the Martin Luther King-Juneteenth Festival – Sonoma County’s Official Juneteenth Celebration. Their intentionality in ensuring the history of the event’s formation – rooted in SRJC student protest to demolish the park – continues on. This event is reflective and representative of the long history of Black organizations, Black community leaders, and Black families coming together in Sonoma County to celebrate our shared history, lineage and culture. 

As we know, 250 years of slavery was followed by the Jim Crow era, separate and unequal treatment of Black Americans, and then by modern forms of segregation including overt and covert redlining. One consequence is that Black folks were denied the ability to own homes in various places throughout Sonoma county, to build generational wealth, and participate in society as equal members (.83% Black homeowners). Black folks continue to be overrepresented in the unsheltered population at 9% and make up 2% of the county population.

In the wake of the post – 2020 awakening, our branch has grown concerned over the Juneteenth “bandwagoning” from various jurisdictions and organizations. This has shown up as:

• Resolutions and Proclamations of the holiday with inconsistent invitations to Black organizational leaders.
• Performative flag raising ceremonies with an urgent demand of participation Black people.
• Centering these jurisdictional proclamations in respective chambers versus planning to attend the community led/driven event and join the collective.

Resulting in:

• An active practice of erasure and decentering the Black community.
  • Why not just attend the main celebration at MLK Park? Is it that hard to authentically engage in Black led community events?
• We (Black folks) are aware of the holiday, even prior to the Federal Recognition. How are each of the institutions honoring the holiday and providing their employees with the day off?
  • The County of Sonoma does not give their employees the holiday; they can use a vacation float day for Friday or Monday.
    • As a result, there is inconsistency across a number of cities because there has not been a modeled commitment.
• Continued demands and commands for free labor of Black folks.
  • Prepare a stipend or honorarium for Black leaders to
    • “teach you and your organization about the significance.”
    • Or to write the resolutions rooted in a commitment to action and engagement.
  • Also, Google and Learning for Justice are free.
• A continued expectation for Black leaders to show up, smile, and be grateful all while shouldering the very weight it takes to exist and be Black in this county. 

With that last point, we would be remiss not to raise that our branch leaders had to fight to ensure Black and Indigenous peoples were included in the 2021 Portrait of Sonoma after years of erasure. We began our calls for Racism as a Public Health Crisis in early 2020 (prior to the pandemic) and were never fully heard, acknowledged, or included in the County making the declaration in 2024 nor with the City of Santa Rosa in 2021.

We feel that all cities and the county need to show a realization that modern forms of apartheid, segregation, and exploitative labor, ones that we see throughout Sonoma County, are not consistent with a Proclamation favoring civil rights and social justice.

Juneteenth Proclamations often express a desire to foster understanding, reconciliation, and unity among all people. We ask you to value this statement by addressing the concerns that we continue to rise of the under-represented and marginalized here in Sonoma County and to put this value on an equal plane with preserving the comforts of Sonoma County’s “liberal” aesthetic.

We should not continue to be subjected to tokenism and erasure because leaders of cities and organizations want to check the box on the two “Black things” a year – Black History Month and Juneteenth.

We are calling for full attention, respectful engagement, and investment in these key Black led events and celebrations.

# # #