Paso Robles will celebrate Black freedom at the city’s second Juneteenth Jubilee
.jpg "Paso Robles High School athletics coach Juanetta Perkins, seen with daughter Kennedy Johnson, initiated the effort to start an ethnic studies program. She says she learned little about her own heritage while growing up there.")
Paso Robles is celebrating Black liberation this weekend with musical entertainment, storytelling, soul food and guest speakers in the city’s first-ever Juneteenth Jubilee at Downtown City Park.
Visitors can arrive around noon to see an exhibit of old African artifacts and historical monuments commemorating the history of people of color from Paso Robles, community activist and event organizer Juanetta Perkins told The Tribune.
“This is gonna be a jubilee across Paso Robles in the City Park,” Perkins said. She estimates nearly 300 people will be attending the inaugural event.
The program will begin at 1 p.m. with musical entertainment, storytelling and a performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often referred to as the Black national anthem, Perkins said.
Erica Stewart, the first Black mayor of San Luis Obispo, will be speaking at the event along with Paso Robles Mayor Steve Martin.
Martin will be reading a proclamation from the City of Paso Robles recognizing Saturday, June 18, as “Juneteenth Day,” which was also presented to the City Council on June 7.
The Paso Robles Juneteenth Jubilee will also include distribution of awards to pillars of the Black community in Paso Robles, Perkins said. Some of the people will be recognized as mothers, women of God, Black teachers and Black business owners.
“We’re just gonna uplift them, honor them, give them a certificate,” Perkins said.
New federal holiday celebrates Black liberation
Juneteenth was recognized as a federal holiday by President Joe Biden last year.
“On Juneteenth, we recommit ourselves to the work of equity, equality, and justice,” according to a White House Proclamation on Juneteenth Day of Observance.
Juneteenth recognizes the significance of June 19, 1865, the day enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally learned they were released from bondage two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
“But let’s go all the way to 2022,” Perkins said. “Yeah, there’s no chains. Yeah, no one owes us, but as a Black community, I don’t think that everything’s equal yet.”
That’s why the Juneteenth Jubilee is celebrating being “free-ish,” Perkins said.
“That’s the free-ish, that the way we talk to each other. ‘Yeah, OK, we’re free-ish, if you say we are,” Perkins said. “But we’re not. We’re still restrained and put in boxes and redlined.”
Juneteenth in Paso Robles was a labor of love for community activists
Bringing the Juneteenth Jubilee to Paso Robles was not an easy task.
Perkins worked tirelessly over the past year to gather community buy-in for the event and coordinate the logistics of putting it on at the Downtown City Park.
She was able to gather sponsorships from local businesses, clubs and individual donations to help bring the event to Paso Robles.
Perkins hosted a smaller-scale Juneteenth celebration at Sherwood Park in Paso Robles in 2021, but this is the first Juneteenth held at Downtown City Park and first to be recognized by Paso Robles City Council.
Though the city agreed to co-sponsor the Juneteenth Jubilee and allowed Perkins use the park for free, it did not provide any financial support, according to Perkins and a Paso Robles City Council staff report.
Besides finances, in a conversation about event logistics with a Paso Robles city employee, Perkins was told that “all eyes are on us now.”
For the past few months, she has been feeling the pressure.
“When you say all eyes on you as a Black person, that means you better not be just mediocre or 100% — that’s (how) my grandma raised me is you can’t just be 100%, you got to be 150%,” Perkins said in a May conversation. “So, this event has to go flawless. Period.”
Perkins had some concerns about push-back from community members who don’t support the idea of celebrating Juneteenth at Downtown City Park.
She pulled aside Paso Robles Police Chief Damian Nord at a recent City Council meeting to express her concerns that someone may try to deface the Juneteenth Jubilee banner that hangs downtown.
“I honestly thought that someone would try to take it down or try to mess with it,” Perkins said. “I just wanted to make him aware of that, because I had to have that feeling.”
She was told by Nord that the Police Department would keep a close eye on the banner and signage around town, and that anyone who violated the signage would be held accountable.
“I hated to have to go to him to even tell him that,” Perkins said.
Seeing the Juneteenth Jubilee banner hanging above First Street in Paso Robles holds special meaning for Perkins, who grew up in the city, coaches girls basketball at the high school and is involved in various North County community groups.
When Perkins drives her 13-year-old daughter, Kennedy Johnson, up to Paso Robles from their home in Atascadero, she points out the banner every time.
“I’ll be like, look kid, look what your mom did,” she said.
“It doesn’t always have to be someone that doesn’t look like her making a difference or showing the positive way to do things,” Perkins said. “I want her to see someone that looks like her doing that.”
The Juneteenth Jubilee will be held at the Downtown City Park in Paso Robles from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
This story was originally published June 17, 2022 at 12:35 PM.
CORRECTION: The Juneteenth Jubilee in 2022 is Paso Robles’ second Juneteenth celebration, but is the first recognized by the City Council and first in Downtown City Park.
