UB community celebrates Juneteenth

The UB community came together to take part in Buffalo’s 49th consecutive Juneteenth Festival on June 15 and 16.

The Office of Inclusive Excellence led a steering committee made up of representatives from 18 participating schools and units to coordinate the university’s collaborative efforts as a Juneteenth sponsor.

“In previous years, individual schools and units participated in Buffalo’s Juneteenth Festival,” says Seval Yildirim, vice provost for inclusive excellence. “This year, there was a desire to plan together and come together to participate in this significant event as one UB community.”

The Jonathan Daniels Chapter of White Coats for Black Lives at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences led 120 True Blue community members in the Juneteenth parade on June 15. Following the parade, the community gathered for the two-day festival in Dr. Martin Luthur King, Jr. Park featuring music, food and retail vendors, family activities and other art and cultural performances showcasing the diversity of talent found in Buffalo’s Black community.

UB faculty, staff, students and alumni staffed a tent in the festival’s health pavilion, leading many activities during the weekend. Among them:

• The Jacobs School provided eye screenings, information on hands-only CPR and Erie County mental health resources and activities related to vaccines, wastewater testing and other community health topics.
• The School of Social Work facilitated build-your-own self-care kits and instructions on how to make aromatic relaxation bath salts.
• The School of Dental Medicine provided complimentary dental care kits.
• The College of Arts and Sciences hosted several activities, including a demonstration that allowed visitors to hear what their voice would sound like to someone fitted with a cochlear implant, a device that helps people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
• The Cora P. Maloney Center held demonstrations for wooden engineering robotic kits and handed out make-your-own slime kits.
• The School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences shared health information and guided kid-friendly activities.
• The Graduate School of Education, Office of Alumni Engagement and Educational Opportunity Center interacted with community members, shared additional information and handed out UB swag.

Buffalo kicked off its 2024 Juneteenth celebration — considered one of the largest in the country — on June 7 with the raising of the African American pride flag in Niagara Square sponsored by the Juneteenth Committee and the city of Buffalo. Then, the celebration recognized Sankofa Days from June 8-14. Sankofa is a Swahili term that means it’s OK to go back into the past and bring wisdom from our ancestors into the present. The events during Sankofa Days engaged the community in cultural arts, sciences and various empowerment skills.

Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. It dates from the spring of 1865 and the end of the Civil War when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that all enslaved people should be freed. In 2021, Juneteenth became an official federal holiday.

Buffalo’s Juneteenth Festival was started in 1976 by B.U.I.L.D., a community-based organization. The initial celebration was held on Jefferson Avenue and featured entertainment, murals, food and clothing vendors, and other cultural festivities. After several years, the celebration outgrew Jefferson Avenue and was moved to Martin Luther King Jr. Park at Best Street and Fillmore Avenue.

According to its website, the Juneteenth Festival’s mission is to actively preserve and promote the broad spectrum of African American heritage through educational and cultural activities that benefit the community as a whole.