CELEBRATION
Juneteenth’s new attractions include re-enactment of a slave auction
By Natalie Morera
NEWS STAFF REPORTER
Updated: 06/16/08 6:45 AM
-
- It was a sunny and warm Sunday in Martin Luther King Park in Buffalo, where these folks were taking a break from the action on the last day of the annual Juneteenth Festival.
The Juneteenth Festival drew a smaller crowd to Martin Luther King Park on Sunday, but still entertained festival-goers with a variety of events and activities celebrating African-American heritage and culture.
Saturday’s crowd was estimated at more than 40,000, while Sunday brought in about half of that number.
“I was surprised attendance was down, but then all of a sudden at 3 o’clock, people started walking in,” said Marcus Brown, president of the festival’s board of directors. “I looked down Fillmore Avenue and there was a bunch of people coming down.”
Brown explained that attendance on Sundays usually goes down because there’s no parade like there is on Saturday. The parade is the most popular event each year.
“It’s a community parade. Everybody gets involved in it,” Brown said.
In addition to traditional events like the parade, this year’s festival included a re-enactment of a slave auction that took place throughout the two days. The actors stayed in character after the performance to answer questions from the crowd.
Brown said that many attendees had never seen a re-enactment before.
“The re-enacting stage was beautiful. We have to improve on something like that,” Brown said.
Debra Johnson, who has attended the festival nearly every year, said she couldn’t attend the re-enactment.
“Emotionally, I wasn’t ready for it,” Johnson said, adding that it was different to read and hear about such auctions then it was to actually see it.
Also new this year was a two-hour African drum and dance event that included an hourlong class on African drums and another hour on dance. Brown said the event was very well attended.
The Museum of Science held an exhibit of William West’s art, provided by El Museo.
West is a Buffalo native who displayed about 30 pieces of art made between 1951 and the present. Pieces included watercolor paintings and pen-and-ink drawings.
Lenore Bethel, associate curator of El Museo, said many festival- goers approached her to express their enjoyment of the display.
“What we try to do is highlight artists that work in the community, grew up in the community, to show that art is a realistic goal within the community,” Bethel said. “It’s something you can aspire to be.”
This year’s celebration might be over but it’s back to the drawing board to prepare for 2009.
On Tuesday, the board of directors will meet to evaluate this year’s festival and discuss improvements that should be made for next year. Actual planning will begin in July. Brown expects the evaluation to be more positive than negative.
“With a festival this size, nothing works perfectly,” Brown said, “but whatever hurdles we had, we jumped them.”
