Paso Robles celebrates Juneteenth at Downtown City Park. Here are some highlights
Hundreds of residents arrived at Downtown City Park in Paso Robles to celebrate Juneteenth on Saturday.
This is the city’s second annual Juneteenth celebration, but the first celebration at Downtown City Park.
It won’t be the last Juneteenth in Paso Robles.
Mayor Steve Martin proclaimed the third Saturday in June “Juneteenth Day” from this day forward.
The event featured storytelling, musical entertainment and artifacts representing the history of Black leadership in Paso Robles.
San Luis Obispo Mayor Erica Stewart, the first Black woman to hold the position, also spoke at the event.
Local Black leaders were recognized for their vision and contributions to the Paso Robles community.
Juneteenth draws from county and beyond
Residents came to Paso Robles from neighboring cities and all over to take part in the jubilee.
“I’m proud of my town,” Chire Mitchell said. “The signs, the advertisement, the support — I love it.”
Mitchell said she came from Las Vegas to attend the Juneteenth celebration in her hometown and to support her childhood friend, Juanetta Perkins.
An event such as Juneteenth would not have been possible when Perkins and Mitchell were growing up in Paso Robles in the 1980s, Mitchell said.
“Absolutely not,” Mitchell said, noting that they didn’t have the words or knowledge to express the importance of a celebration like Juneteenth to Paso Robles as youths.
“We got the backbone to stand up and say we want to do a Juneteenth,” Mitchell said after COVID-19 and other recent events.
The Juneteenth Jubilee in Paso Robles celebrates an important event in Black history, but the celebration is open to all.
“We don’t push anybody away, Black, brown, white, green — as long as you’re cool people, you’re invited,” Los Osos resident and Realtor Ashley Brown said.
Brown came to the jubilee with her daughter, Jade, to celebrate the occasion with others in the local Black community.
“There’s so few of us in this county that we have to come together when it’s time to come together,” Brown said.
Brown sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also called the Black national anthem, at the jubilee.
Brown said she recently started a playgroup for children of color in SLO County called Ruby’s, named after civil rights hero Ruby Bridges, one of the first Black children to integrate an all-white school.
“She had to be brave and she had to hold her head up high, and that’s what my kids have to do daily,” Brown said.
Currently there are about 22 children in the playgroup ranging in age from 14 months to 13 years. She said she’s seen the growth in the children who participate.
“They go from being in schools in a predominately all-white area seeing nobody that looks like them to when we get together monthly, everybody looking like them,” Brown said. “That’s such a blessing to be in an environment where everybody looks like you or feels like you do.”
Keith Scott, the first Black full-time San Luis Obispo County sheriff’s deputy, performed an original song called “Unshakeable.”
“If it happens because your skin is beautiful brown, you are called awful names, if they dare to try to stand in our way, to impede us from our dreams, we’re gonna let them know today that we are mighty and we believe. ... You are unshakable,“ Scott sang.
“I am unshakable,” the crowd sang back.
Scott said in his life he was often the “first” Black person or person of color to hold positions, and he is excited and hopeful for Black people to no longer have to be the first person of their race to hold positions of power.
North county organizer brings event to Paso Robles
Juneteenth recognizes the significance of June 19, 1865, the day Black Americans were freed from the bondage of slavery — two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation mandating freedom for Black Americans.
But the struggle for true freedom and equality in this country is far from over, Perkins said.
That’s why Paso Robles’ Juneteenth Jubilee celebrates Black Americans being “free-ish” in 2022, Perkins said.
“That’s the free-ish, that’s 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.”
Despite the struggle and sorrow Black Americans have faced, there is joy in their resilience, which is why Juneteenth is seen as a day for jubilation.
“That’s the great thing about our culture is we take those kind of sorrows and we turn it into something that makes us stronger,” Perkins said.
Perkins said she was happy with the hundreds of people who turned out for the event.
“The community came out and they showed us that we matter and that means a lot, says a lot,” Perkins said.
She said her hope is that events like the Juneteenth Jubilee in Paso Robles make community members more comfortable with talking about Black history as an important piece of overall U.S. history.
“Hopefully this carries on into the education system and they see how important it is to teach all history and the real history,” Perkins said.
Perkins said if there is one thing she hopes attendees take away from the celebration, it is: “Kindness always wins. Love and kindness always win.”
