Posted on by ArtsWestchester
Aaron:
How did Juneteenth in New Rochelle first come together?
Linda Tarrant-Reid:
Last year we went to the City of New Rochelle to ask them if they would partner with us to do a Juneteenth celebration. They thought it was a great idea. The year before, they had done a flag raising and a little ceremony in front of city hall, but in 2021, as, you know, Biden made it a federal holiday. We were already in the planning stages, by April, I’d say. We were kind of late, but we had a vision. We wanted it to be multi-venue. We wanted it to be multi-organizational. We wanted the message and the information about the history of Juneteenth to permeate the community. We did not want it to be just a Black history-thing only for the African American community. It was for the entire community. So with that said, we opened up the celebration to different organizations. The three last year were Ward Acres Community Garden, the Thomas Paine Cottage Museum, and the Paine Memorial building. All of them participated in Juneteenth. Ward Acres started at 9AM. They had presentations by the city historian about Juneteenth and the history of an African American cemetery, Carpenter Cemetery, in the north end of New Rochelle, where Ward Acres is located. They also had a storyteller, Thelma Thomas. She came up from New York City. Everybody said she was amazing. They also had a Tai Chi workshop. They had breakfast nibbles and a tour of their community garden. Everything was outdoors. It was beautiful. That was from 9 to 11AM.
From noon to 2PM, people made their way to city hall. We had the show mobile, which was great. We had it located on North Avenue facing the doors of city hall so that the lawn became a place where people could sit. They were sitting on the grass. They were standing under the trees. And they were watching the ceremony. The ceremony started with the Bulkandie African Dance Theater, which did a processional up the middle walkway to the city hall steps. Then they did a short performance. The Mayor and Andrea Stewart-Cousins came and raised the Juneteenth flag. We had different religious leaders come up and bless the event, a Muslim Imam, a Methodist minister, and a rabbi, all from New Rochelle.
Then we had a concert. We had Wayne Henderson, Rocky Middleton, Accent Dance of New York City. We had a jazz vocalist, Ron Jackson, and his daughter, Lucia Jackson. And then we had a hip-hop dancer, also part of the Accent Dance ensemble, Steven Vilsaint. Our actual event was from noon to 2PM, just two hours. We squeezed a lot in. We had some vendors as well, including Chef El-Amin. He’s famous. People come from all over to eat his fish.
Then from 3PM to 6PM, people went up to the Thomas Paine Cottage. A beautiful setting. The Cottage Museum is there. It was a family-oriented event. A lot of crafts. They had beautiful Juneteenth desserts like red velvet cookies and red punch. They had an art exhibit and a play reading that talked about the crossing of Washington. They had Capoeira from Brazil. They had a demonstration on the lawn and it was interactive so that the kids and young people could do some of the moves. They also organized self-guided tours. One of their board members dressed in colonial garb. They had a couple of people dressed in colonial garb, so that they could take pictures with the kids. And we videotaped everything. And the production company had a drone. Our video is incredible and we’re using that to raise funds for this year.