Juneteenth: Sweet Words of Liberty
Stormy weather and dried-up dollars didn’t stop Corey Michael from booming, beeping, and slapping his jaw at Campbell Park’s Juneteenth celebration on Saturday. Juneteenth, which falls on June 19, is a holiday that honors the time in 1865 when all the slaves in western reaches of the United States learned of their freedom.
Michael, 18, makes sounds with his voice and body that resemble those of a drum machine or synthesizer. He calls himself Effex, the human beat-box.
Michael was one of the young finalists in the Talent Search Expo, an ongoing contest put on by local magazines and malls, who performed at the festival. The teens were excited to be on stage, even though the audience was smaller than expected, about 200, and they performed for free.
St. Petersburg’s Juneteenth once had crowds of 10,000 people and nationally known funk and rhythm and blues acts. The celebration was the biggest in Florida. That was before tens of thousands of dollars in state funding were cut in 1999.
“When Gov. Bush took office, he drew a line right straight through it,” said Jeanie Blue, who has organized St. Petersburg’s Juneteenth since it started 12 years ago. “We’ve had to scale down on some things.”
First to go were big-name performers. Then came the thousands of pounds’ worth of free food. Crowds diminished after that. Blue, along with state Rep. Frank Peterman, lobbied to get funding back two years ago and failed.
Peterman remembered when the money dried up.
“There was a budget cut -- period. They were cutting stuff across the board,” he said. He plans to continue to fight for dollars because he sees importance in the holiday.“Juneteenth gives us a landmark,” he said. “[It] tells us how far we’ve come against great odds.”
Gov. Jeb Bush’s press office said that money for Juneteenth can now be obtained in budget requests from legislators called “member projects.” However, this year no such projects were allowed in the state budget, so no cash was available for the holiday.
Putting the event together without state money led organizers on a long search for alternatives. Sponsors such as Bank of America provided tents and fliers this year, but no monetary support. Almost all of the actual dollars used for the event came from fees charged of vendors.
Without as much funding, Juneteenth’s musical focus switched from rhythm and blues to more modern musical forms. Rinita Anderson, an organizer, spent two months getting 20 rap and hip-hop acts to play for free at the event. The showcase of local rappers drew a much younger crowd, and organizers were happy to see the youth and educate them about the holiday.
Many teens in attendance on Saturday stayed despite the thundering sky to dance and drip in front of the speakers. The St. Petersburg rap group South House strutted on stage in their sport jerseys, while excited young talent-show finalists like Jennifer Rodney tried to keep their cool -- or keep their glitter eye shadow from washing off.
Luckily, Rodney and her eye shadow made it to the stage. She was the first of the finalists to perform, soulfully singing a Whitney Houston song, “Run to You,” through a gray curtain of rain. Young men selling hands-free umbrella-hats did good business in the downpour. Snow-cone sellers packed up early and went home.
Scattered showers have marked Juneteenth before, but never so much water as on Saturday. Blue stayed positive though, and was grateful to the people who braved the weather to celebrate.
The state government has two levels of holidays: public and legal. Legal holidays, like Juneteenth, Arbor Day and Grandmother’s Day are less recognized. Public holidays, like Christmas and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, are more likely to be funded and become a day off for workers and students. The birthday of Robert E. Lee has the status of a public holiday. Blue hopes to see Juneteenth get that recognition.
She asked, “We celebrate holidays established by Europeans, but not holidays established by black people?”
