Marin City, Tiburon plan Juneteenth celebrations
In a first, Marin County residents will have two Juneteenth celebrations to choose from this year, one in Marin City and another in Tiburon.
The annual event, celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s, marks the abolition of slavery in the United States. On Thursday, President Biden signed legislation making June 19 the nation’s 12th federal holiday, the first since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was established in 1983.
“It’s good for it to be recognized as a federal holiday, but the reality is that it’s been recognized for a long time before the federal government,” said Oshalla Diana Marcus, Marin City Arts and Culture director and Juneteenth organizer. “If it were recognized or not, it’s still a sacred holiday that we would be celebrating. As far as I’m concerned, the feds should have recognized it back in 1865. But I’m glad they caught up.”
Marin City will hold its fifth annual celebration at Rocky Graham Park from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. Tiburon will shut down Main Street from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday for its celebration. Both events are free.
Marcus said she and activist Ayana Morgan-Woodard collaborated to organize the Marin City event. This year’s theme, “It Takes a Village,” will acknowledge Marin as the ancestral land of the Coast Miwok and honor the youngest and oldest Black residents in Marin City.
“What is unique about this Juneteenth is that it is a collaboration of new school and old school,” Marcus said. “So in our planning, Ayana is working with her community and the younger generation, and I’m working through my network and the established community — the old school.”
Morgan-Woodard said the event is also being presented by the Marin Community Services District, Play Marin and a network of Black entrepreneurs and residents. The event will include a food court, vendors, musical performances and speeches.
“We’ll have different ages and generations in the community here at this Juneteenth,” she said. “We are fully focused and we did this, all of this, together. We play the cards we’ve been dealt, but there is always a better way to play the cards if we all collaborate.”
The Tiburon event, coordinated by the town’s Diversity Inclusion and Equity Task Force and the Chamber of Commerce, also will have live music, food and speeches.
“There are 83 Black folks in town. So for this to happen here is groundbreaking,” said Noah Griffin, an African-American Tiburon resident and member of the diversity committee. “It looks like we are leading the way for most towns and cities in Marin.”
Griffin said the task force, which is made up of the Town Council and five community members, decided to hold event after a year of racial tensions stoked by the murder of George Floyd and a confrontation between police and Yema Khalif, co-owner of Yema, Tiburon’s only Black-owned business.
“It’s a great way to help educate the population of Tiburon,” said Yema co-owner Hawi Awash, who helped organize the event. “We will have a couple of poems and speeches regarding the day and its significance celebrating the history of Black people in America. I hope this is one of many to come.”
Griffin and Khalif said they will encourage people to also attend the event in Marin City, which is running later, is more established and is tied to a community that was built by African-American shipyard workers who were restricted from moving elsewhere in Marin due to racial covenants and redlining.
Play Marin founder Paul Austin said he will be in Marin City helping share the history of Juneteenth.
“Juneteenth is not a holiday that a lot of people outside of the Black community know about,” Austin said. “Overall it’s just an exciting day to celebrate not only with friends and family but with those people who I don’t know.”
Morgan-Woodard said she is glad Tiburon is having an event and hopes that communities across Marin will collaborate to host a unified celebration in the future to understand Marin City.
“Next time we should work to find a better way to collaborate instead of using different spaces,” she said.