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City of Buffalo preps for weekend's Juneteenth Festival

Thomas O'Neil-White

One of the largest Juneteenth festivals in the United States is set to kick off Saturday in Martin Luther King, Jr. Park and the surrounding neighborhood. Work crews were out in the neighborhood on a cool and blustery Friday, sprucing up the greenspace.

The 44th annual event commemorates the celebration slaves in Texas had after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Thousands of people are expected to be take part in the festivities throughout the weekend. Juneteenth President Marcus Brown says it's an opportunity to get young people together with community elders.

“We have to learn from the people that came before us,” he said. “We need to talk to them.”

Within that framework, Brown said younger generations can have a greater appreciation for what previous generations had to endure.

“We need to reconnect with them to find out how they made it,” he said. “It was worst for them than it is for us. We’re going through some changes now and we need to know how they made it through.”

As a few vendors began putting together their booths up near Parade Avenue, Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown was at the park inspecting the work being done. Besides the opportunity to try food, buy clothing and watch the parade on Saturday, the mayor said it's a great chance for community outreach.

Credit Thomas O'Neil-White
Mayor Byron Brown shows off new bicycles given to Buffalo Peacemakers to aide in community outreach.

“We’ve donated four bicycles to our Peacemakers,” Brown said. “So Peacemakers can get out and continue to enhance the outreach that they do to the community with the Buffalo Police Department.”

Brown said the city’s Juneteenth preparations are just about complete.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, Thomas moved to Western New York at the age of 14. A graduate of Buffalo State College, he majored in Communications Studies and was part of the sports staff for WBNY. When not following his beloved University of Kentucky Wildcats and Boston Red Sox, Thomas enjoys coaching youth basketball, reading Tolkien novels and seeing live music.
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