Athens celebrates Juneteenth

Published 2:30 pm Tuesday, June 20, 2023

The country celebrated its newest federal holiday Monday — Juneteenth. June 19 commemorates the final end of slavery in the United States. The 3rd Annual Juneteenth Celebration was held Sunday at Athens State’s Beasley Field with music, dancing, vendors, food trucks, inflatables and community.

This was also the third year Athens’ Burks Family organized the Juneteenth celebration. Chris Burks led the efforts for the community event with help from his family and friends.

“I didn’t have a staff like I did last year. My family and friends have been really helpful. They check everyone in. My brother and our sons have done all the sound,” Burk said. “This is the third year. I used to see celebrations outside the state of Alabama. I went to one four years ago and it was so huge and I said that I want to do that in my hometown. I got the opportunity to do it and the community has really backed me and I wish they would back me more because I want it to be even bigger.”

The celebration kicked-off with a community church service featuring the Rev. Sandford Johnson and pastor Willie M. Byrd. As the event stretched into the afternoon, the crowd continued to grow in anticipation of a jam packed schedule of great musical acts including Family of Tribes, April Horton, Pat Jamar, Melody Shari and others.

“We had a 9 a.m. service from a local church here and a pastor from Mississippi. It went well and we had a nice crowd and the crowd is still growing,” Burks said.

Offstage, the event provided an opportunity for a variety of vendors to showcase their talents. Author and speaker Rashanda Nicole of Safe Travels was excited to be at Sunday’s celebration.

“I feel like it is a very important event that I wanted to support plus I wanted to showcase my brand. I am an author and I have written a 31-day devotional (‘Pearls of Grace’) and I also have an apparel line. My devotional is a bit of a testimonial. I relate scripture to personal experiences and then I give you an opportunity to reflect on something,” she said.

Burks hopes the celebration will continue to grow each year and invites local businesses and all in the community to participate in future Juneteenth events and recognize the importance of the holiday.

“We celebrate the Fourth of July. That’s Independence Day. This is the same thing. It basically gave us our freedom and we are able to do things we couldn’t do then. We are able to do so much now. It’s a celebration. When I look at it, I don’t look at it as a Black and white thing. There’s black people and white people and we all do the same things and we should be able to celebrate together just as we all celebrate the Fourth of July together,” Burks said.

Many of those in attendance stressed that the Juneteenth Celebration is for everyone and not just the Black community. Many expressed their hopes to see a more diverse crowd in the future.

“We are the United States of America. We are all one people and as a people of this nation we should all be able to come together. Maybe your ancestors didn’t go through slavery, come up through slavery, like ours did, but maybe by us talking, bringing everything to the forefront, putting everything on the table and allowing us to speak about things, you’ll have an understanding about our culture and maybe you’ll show a little more empathy towards the things that we struggle with rather than saying, ‘Well, why are they still fighting for that? You know slavery is over,” Sheryl Scales said.

Event organizer, performer and owner of Unrestricted Apparel Corey Burks perhaps summed up best what the event was all about.

“It means community. Community and family celebrating our heritage and just being out here together, having fun and having a good time. It’s just a great event to be at,” he said.