Detroit marks Juneteenth with art and joy at downtown celebration

One-and-a-half year-old Brooklyn Phillips probably didn’t know what ground she stood on or why she was there or the exact meaning of it all as she slapped her hands onto a piece of art in Detroit’s Capitol Park on Juneteenth.

Still, as she cast wide eyes onto the painted figures on the statue — meant to recall the artist’s experience of Black Joy and fulfilment in a collective space — and wiggled her body to the tune of techno and African drumbeats, she seemed to get the idea.

Juneteenth marks the anniversary of when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were finally told, years after the fact, that they were free. And it needs to be a celebration, said her mom, native Detroiter Equania Hendrix, 37, now living in Clinton Township.

Enslaved ancestors didn’t get this, Hendrix said.

“We should be celebrating, we should be acknowledging what they went through because they didn't get to celebrate,” she said. “They didn’t get to feel as free as we are.”

The pair and their family were just some of hundreds who could be seen walking through or staying awhile Wednesday at the Juneteenth celebration run by Decked Out Detroit, a Bedrock initiative.

It was one of numerous events held in metro Detroit to commemorate the holiday. Detroit muralist Hubert Massey and high school students nearby restored the city’s “Power to the People” street mural on Woodward Avenue. Northwestern High School held a parade. The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History hosted a jubilee. A Juneteenth on the Cut event was canceled with concerns for possible storms on top of the heat advisory, but other events went on. And those were just a few.

Hendrix and her group, her three daughters among them, had just come from Juneteenth activities on Belle Isle and planned to head to more celebrations in Royal Oak after the Capitol Park celebration. She wanted to make sure each of her children got to do an activity that appealed to them, and she wanted them to take in the history.

“We're free,” Hendrix said. “As Black children you need to know that. You need to understand your history, whether it's just being free or what this person made in Black history. They just tell them basic things at school. …. (Then) just to feel free and to have fun and to enjoy and even with others, even with different cultures — it's good that we are celebrating and everybody wants to celebrate.”

The location of Decked Out Detroit's event held a history of liberation, as at least one speaker explained to the crowd.

The area where little Brooklyn danced in her purple Crocs on Wednesday was home to Michigan’s first territorial capitol, state capitol and high school, and the body of the state’s first governor, Stevens T. Mason, is buried there. But it also was stationed along the Underground Railroad, as an abolitionist named Seymour Finney hid those trying to escape to Canada in his barn.

The parents of 13-year-old Jillian Jones had told her she had to come to the event Wednesday, but she was glad she did. She liked seeing the culture and dances and wanted to tell people “just to be open with your culture.”

It’s about understanding the history, freedoms and how it impacts us today, said her mom, Jennifer Jones, 39, of Detroit. The event at Capitol Park also showcased Black-owned businesses and gave Black people in the city time to celebrate themselves, she said.

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History books showed Black people in shackles, rather than being kings and queens and coming from royalty, Jillian’s dad, comedian Josiah B. Jones, 35, said. It’s encouraging to see the culture shown in a positive light, he said.

He hopes the celebration isn't contained to the single day but that it continues throughout the year and aids in making things like education and employment more accessible for Black people.

“It's like a celebration of cultural justice,” he said of Juneteenth.

It was also a celebration of Black Detroit artists.

Born and raised in Detroit, collage artist Judy Bowman, 72, of Romulus, got the chance to see her own face displayed in another artist’s work as part of “The Stories of Us” series in the park.

The series features 10 drum sculptures from Detroit-based artists focused on Black experiences, shared past and present, and a future of equity and solidarity all tied to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026 and programming that year.

Bowman was included in Ackeem Salmon’s “Self-Portrait, Detroit 2024,” along with numerous other Detroit artists. She pointed a few out, including the famed painter Shirley Woodson.

Younger artists like Salmon are carrying on the legacy of recognizing such Detroit artists, she said. And the event was bringing people together to recognize the contributions in the community.

“This is like a liberation of Black artists in Detroit, so it all ties together,” she said.

It was on one of these drum sculptures, Juniper Jones’ “Sam’s Kitchen,” that little Brooklyn had gazed.

The little one’s elder had called for more unity in the community. Some attendees called for reparations. Others spoke of the fight for freedom from all things, even just distractions in the day to day, or called for all companies to take the day off, or spoke of the holiday’s spread in recent years.

The collective feeling of togetherness and hopes that it sparked better understanding of the history loomed large, however.

"We have to know where we came from," said Hendrix. "When we don't know where we came from, where are we going?"

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit marks Juneteenth with art and joy in Capitol Park