Join us at Berkeley's Juneteenth Celebration on Sunday, June 18th from 11am to 6pm at Adeline and Alcatraz Street. The 14th annual Berkeley Juneteenth Festival features arts, crafts, food, music and multicultural activities. There will be multicultural food booths with soul foods such as ribs and peach cobbler as well as Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, French, Mexican, and African food. The festival will be held in the South Berkeley business district, a four block area on Adeline Street between Ashby and Alcatraz Avenues.
Admission is free.
The event is a reminder that the quest for freedom has been an ongoing, hard fought battle among African Americans in the United States as people of color struggle for equality. Specific to the celebration of Juneteenth, black soldiers played a significant role in the civil war that ended slavery. The problem for black soldiers was not bravery, but obtaining the chance to fight at all. At every interval they were confronted with racial scorn and fear, no doubt a product of the long existence of slavery itself.