Honoring Juneteenth in Detroit in 2025
The big picture: Juneteenth commemorates the day when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free 2 ½ years after the passing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Celebrations have continued to grow nationwide since it became a federal holiday in 2021, amid a backlash on civil rights and discussions on racism.
Zoom in: Detroit Public Library locations are closed Thursday, but the branches have more than 20 events throughout the week, including:
Midwest Invitational Rodeo — a Black cowboy and cowgirl organization — will appear Wednesday in a 3:30-7pm event at the Main Library.
At the same time, the Main Library will also host a presentation on Detroit's historic jazz clubs and other Black-owned businesses.
Alnur African Dance Company workshop at the Elmwood Park Branch, Friday 4-5pm.
Plus, crafts at several branches, including Wilder and Redford.
The Wright Museum of African American History will host a whole day of Juneteenth programming on Thursday, honoring it as "not only a celebration of freedom but also a day of reflection, learning, and recommitment to justice," per its website. Activities include:
An educational treasure hunt.
Silent disco yoga.
Creative workshops exploring how art promotes healing and freedom.
A panel with city historian Jamon Jordan about the last known ship carrying enslaved people, featuring descendants of passengers sharing their inherited stories and significance in contemporary issues.
Hart Plaza is busy on Thursday, with a block party 12-5pm featuring the brand Detroit Vs. Everybody, plus music and games. Tickets: $18.
The Hart of Detroit Summer Festival concert then starts at 6pm, with Icewear Vezzo, Peezy, Babyface Ray and more. Tickets: $45 — but there's also a two-for-one deal.
The fourth annual Hamtramck Stadium celebration features a home run derby and a speech from Dale Hale, grandson of Eulyn "Red" Hale of the Detroit Stars, a baseball team in the Negro Leagues.
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USA Today
8 hours ago
- USA Today
Why all-Black rodeo events are 'so hot right now'
The nation's longest running Black rodeo is among a handful of events some say have seen a boost due to Beyonce's groundbreaking 2024 country album. USA TODAY This story has been updated. Call it the Beyoncé effect: One of America's biggest music superstars unleashed a stampede of excitement for Black rodeos across the country with her 2024 album "Cowboy Carter." Nowhere is that more obvious than in tiny Okmulgee, Oklahoma, home to the nation's oldest continuously operated Black rodeo. 'When Beyoncé released that country album, she told Black people it's okay to wear cowboy boots and cowboy hats,' said Danell Tipton, who now serves as arena director for multiple state rodeos, including what is now the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo. 'Black rodeoing is so hot right now, every event we go to," said Tipton, a former bull riding champ. "I haven't seen so many Black girls in cowboy hats and boots, ever. We've had our rodeos, but city slickers were never in tune with it. Now, it's like the floodgates opened.' On the weekend of August 9, the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo marked its 70 th year, the legacy of two dozen Black businessmen, farmers and ranchers frustrated with the second-class treatment accorded to Black rodeo competitors and their fans in the 1950s. Tipton has been going to the Okmulgee rodeo ever since he was a kid riding along with his family's roundup club, the Oklahoma City Paraders. The equestrian-minded community organization held weekend parades to precede Black rodeo competitions in rural outposts around the state, in places like Tatums, Clearview and Drumright. 'Okmulgee was always the last rodeo of the year,' he said. 'It was like our Super Bowl.' Situated 40 miles south of Tulsa, the Okmulgee Roy LeBlanc Invitational Rodeo is among the country's largest Black sporting events, according to event producer Kenneth LeBlanc. In 1956, LeBlanc's father Roy and grandfather Charles were among the founders of what was then called the Okmulgee County Roundup Club. 'Black people couldn't get into White rodeos,' said Marcous Friday, who has been the Okmulgee event's announcer for two decades. 'That's why they started the rodeo. Who would have thought that 70 years later, it's still going?' An old-school tradition Okmulgee was among a patchwork of Black rodeo circuit events that thrived in the 1950s and 1960s throughout the Texas Gulf Coast region and the area around Tulsa, according to Keith Ryan Cartwright, author of 'Black Cowboys of Rodeo: Unsung Heroes from Harlem to Hollywood and the American West.' 'A lot of Black rodeo cowboys got their start in one of those two areas,' said Cartwright, who now serves as assistant general manager of the Nashville Stampede, a pro bull riding team. 'Maybe they weren't from there, but they would migrate there in order to compete regularly.' Nearly an hour to the west, the Boley (Oklahoma) Rodeo is the oldest of all Black rodeos, dating back to 1903 – but with several interruptions along the way. Okmulgee has clung to its annual tradition like a bull rider refusing to be bucked off. 'This is the 70 th year, and there's no asterisk,' Cartwright said. 'They even found a way to have it in 2020." The 2025 event features more than 200 competitors, including dozens of calf ropers, team ropers, steer wrestlers and barrel racers. The atmosphere bears little resemblance to the big-money, corporate-sponsored spectacles broadcast on television. 'It's not some multimillion-dollar production,' Cartwright said. 'It's old-school.' 'When they come back to Black rodeo, there's a home for them' The rodeo's inaugural run was held north of town on leased land owned by the local White roundup club, Tipton said. When the club saw the event's success and significantly raised its rates the next year, the organizers of the budding Black rodeo decided it was time to find their own venue and bought 40 acres south of town, he said. That's where the Okmulgee Invitational rodeo was held until 1991, he said, when the all-Black event moved to the Bob Arrington Rodeo Arena, owned by the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. By that time Tipton was starting to compete himself, riding bulls and wrestling steers. In 1998, he was named the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association's bull riding and overall rookie of the year. Coming up in the pro ranks, Tipton said, fellow Black cowboys were a rare sight. Even now, he said, when he goes to events on the East or West coasts, 'they're like, 'Wow. Black cowboys.' They see White cowboys competing on TV every day.' Among the barriers, Tipton said, are finances and unfamiliarity with the logistical strategies necessary to qualify for the national finals, which are based on prize money won throughout the year. Competitors must navigate a network of seasonal events held across the country to finish among the top 15 qualifiers in their respective categories. 'There's so many Black cowboys who should be making tons of money,' Tipton said. 'A lot don't know the business side. So when they come back to Black rodeo, there's a home for them.' When he found success as a rookie and hit the pro circuit, Tipton said, he didn't return to the Black rodeo circuit for several years. But he always made sure to return for Okmulgee. 'The Jackie Robinson of rodeo' He wasn't the only one. Many of the Black rodeo greats throughout the years have frequented Okmulgee, among them Myrtis Dightman, often referred to as 'the Jackie Robinson of rodeo.' Dightman was among those featured during Beyoncé's Christmas Day halftime show during the Houston Texans' game against the Baltimore Ravens in December. 'He was the first African American to qualify for the National Finals Rodeo,' said Friday, the event announcer. 'He never won a world title, but he's the one who actually opened the doors for African American cowboys in rodeo today.' Dightman grew up on a ranch in Crockett, Texas, two hours north of Houston, where his father was a ranch hand and his mother helped work the fields, Cartwright said. He went to school when ranch work allowed, never learning to read. As a young man, Dightman found work as a rodeo clown and bullfighter but knew he had the skills to be an accomplished bull rider, Cartwright said. Like other Black rodeo hopefuls, he often wouldn't be allowed to ride until events were over. 'He quickly established himself not as a great Black bull rider but as a great bull rider,' Cartwright said. Eventually, the humble and well-liked Dightman would earn his way onto the circuit with other cowboys eager to compete against him. In the 1960s, Cartwright said, standards called for only two event judges, and all it took was one to poison a competitor's chances for success. 'It wasn't so egregious as to make them finish last,' he said. 'All they had to do was rob them of a point here or there.' But spread over the course of a season, Cartwright said, these sprinklings of bias had their effect, depriving certain competitors of prize money and dropping them several places in the standings. He believes that happened to Dightman and others. Dightman realized that despite whatever slights he might face, he could still claw his way to the finals if he competed in enough events to earn sufficient prize money. He avoided Southern rodeos and instead hit events in Texas, Oklahoma, on the West Coast and throughout the Midwest and Rust Belt. 'He thought, there's always going to be a judge that isn't going to let me win an event, but if over the course of a season I go to more events than anyone else, all my 2 nd places and 4 th places will get me there,' Cartwright said. 'He hustled and was very methodical.' In 1967 and 1968, Dightman finished among the three or four top-ranked bull riders in the world. While he never won the sport's gold buckle, Dightman knew he had accomplished something special, Cartwright said. 'I can't stress enough how good he had to be to finish third at a time when our country was facing the racial animus it did,' he said. 'He said to me, 'I wanted to be a world champion but I never were a world champion, but I was a world champion as a man.' He wasn't bragging on himself. What he was saying was that he saw something that hadn't been done and he wanted to do it and did everything he could to do it. I just find him to be heroic.' Legends of the sport In February, Tipton and Friday teamed up to produce their second annual National Black Cowboy Rodeo Awards and Gala in Oklahoma City. 'We've honored all the old cowboys the last two years,' Tipton said. Dightman, now 90, was among them; so was Charles Sampson, the former kid from Watts, California, who with Dightman's mentorship became the first Black bull rider to win a rodeo world title, in 1982. Both have been among the luminaries who polished their craft at Okmulgee. 'Myrtis and Charlie are legends,' Cartwright said. 'Not just among Black cowboys. They're legendary rodeo cowboys, period.' Before a bull rider's bucking chute opens, there is someone there to tighten the rope he'll use to hold on to for the duration of the ride, and riders are notoriously picky about who gets to do it, Cartwright said. 'When Charlie won the world title in the 10 th round, Myrtis was there and Charlie had him pull his bull rope for him,' he said. 'For him to wave off the guy who would normally pull his rope and let Myrtis do it goes to show that Charlie understood the significance of his moment and that the road to that moment was paved by Myrtis.' It's on that foundation that today's young Black cowboys will build on when they compete this weekend in Okmulgee. 'Okmulgee originated at a time when it was needed,' Cartwright said. 'There was nowhere else for them to go. It's a historic event.'
Buzz Feed
11 hours ago
- Buzz Feed
Jasmine Guillory Defies Dating Stats With Romance Books
If you're a big fan of romance novels, then there's a pretty big chance that you've read or heard of Jasmine Guillory. Her debut novel, The Wedding Date, became an instant hit, and soon earned widespread acclaim on BookTok and morning shows while also topping several book lists. The Wedding Date turned into a series, which includes six books in total: The Wedding Date, The Proposal, The Wedding Party, Royal Holiday, Party of Two, and While We Were Dating.I've read all of them, and I love the mushy feeling they gave me, but The Proposal will always be my favorite. Jasmine has made me fall in love with her characters and the unique worlds they live in, time and time again. Jasmine has helped reclaim the romance spotlight for women, particularly Black women, and expanded what representation looks like when it comes to this genre by giving them permission to see themselves at the center of joyful, sexy, soft, and aspirational love stories. She's assisted in shifting the cultural lens in the genre so that it doesn't depict a narrow image of womanhood. Instead, it's become a space where Black women are seen, desired, and cherished. So, when I heard she was teaming up with Liquid I.V. to quench our thirst after writing such steamy scenes, I knew I had to chat with her about her writing and the complexities that come with it! Your protagonists are often professional, ambitious Black women. Was that a conscious response to maybe a lack of what you were already seeing in romance/fiction, or was it just something that you wanted to be the center focus of your stories? I love that you touched on the theory that Black stories don't sell because it's been proven wrong time and time again. But did it ever deter you from writing Black characters because that notion has been out in the world for so long, or did it only encourage you to write about them more? Romance often gets dismissed as "light" or "fluffy" — a genre that shouldn't be taken too seriously, but your books have weighty, emotional, and cultural undercurrents. What do you wish more people understood about not only writing love stories, but writing them well? You've said before that seeing Black women centered in love stories meant everything to you. What does "representation" actually look like to you, beyond just casting or characters? During the height of dating apps, Black women were viewed as the least desirable and were the least likely to be swiped on. So, can you tell me how you approached writing about Black romance, despite some of the negative realities Black women have experienced with dating? Okay, let's switch it up a bit. I'm going to give you a scenario, and I want you to give me book recommendations that you think would fit. Someone's going through a really bad breakup, which book or books should they immediately pick up? What would you recommend to fans of the "fake dating" trope? If one of your characters could walk off the page and give you dating advice, who would you choose and why? Lastly, why did you want to partner with Liquid I.V.? Thank you so much for chatting with me, Jasmine! You were such a delight.
Los Angeles Times
11 hours ago
- Los Angeles Times
I attended a Black Out performance and, as a white critic, it opened my eyes in an unexpected way
'Berta, Berta,' a two-character play by Angelica Chéri, was inspired by a prison work song from Parchman Farm, the notorious Mississippi State Penitentiary whose harsh conditions and history of forced labor extended the nightmare of antebellum slave plantations into the 20th century. The play, which is receiving its West Coast premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre directed by Andi Chapman, is set in Mississippi in 1923. The action takes place in the home of Berta (Kacie Rogers), a young widow who's awakened in the middle of the night by a visitor from her past. Not just any visitor, mind you, but the love of her life. Leroy (DeJuan Christopher) arrives at the threshold of her small, well-cared for home in a clamorous uproar. He's filthy, his white shirt is covered in blood, and Berta can't tell if he's possessed by the devil or out of his mind. It turns out that he's killed a man who claimed, falsely, to have slept with her. Berta is horrified that Leroy has done something so rash and violent. He holds it as proof of the depth of his love for her. But why, Berta wants to know, did he not get in touch with her after he was released from Parchman? The crime he's committed will only send him back to where, in Leroy's own pained words, 'they take the colored man to kill him from the inside out.' Berta and Leroy exchange grievances over the futility of their love. He can't understand how she could have married; she's bewildered that he could have expected her to wait indefinitely for a ghost. Their passion, however, won't be denied, no matter how angry they make each other. The play is pitched for maximum intensity, and Chapman's direction encourages a mythic scope — a wholly appropriate approach for a drama that leaps over the safety of realism. Amanda Knehans' beautifully designed set, as snug as it is appealing, grounds the action in a clean and cozy domesticity. But this is just an illusion, as the production makes clear through the expressionistic wildness of the lighting (Andrew Schmedake) and sound design (Jeff Gardner). The couple has been granted a brief reprieve from their separation. Leroy, observing an old superstition, made an oath to the awakening cicadas that he will turn himself in if he's given the chance to make peace with Berta. She has made her own pact with the insects, asking them to restore the life of her stillborn baby, whose corpse she has held onto in the hope that the cicadas will answer her prayer. The pressurized, supernatural stakes in such tight quarters sometimes encourage Christopher to push a little too vociferously. Berta's home is too small to contain Leroy — and Christopher's performance never lets us forget it. But the turbulent charge of Leroy's voice and body language serves another purpose: keeping the character's history as an oppressed Black man cruelly cut off from his soulmate ever in sight. Rogers' Berta, comfortably situated in her domestic nest, scales her performance accordingly. She is our anchor into the world of the play, reacting to Leroy's tumultuous intrusion with suspicion and alarm. But as the intimacy grows between the characters, the performers become more relaxed and playful with each other. The Wagnerian nature of Berta and Leroy's love settles down without losing its miraculous mystery. The Sunday matinee I attended was a Black Out performance — an opportunity for a Black audience to experience the play in community. Playwright Jeremy O. Harris championed this concept during the initial Broadway run of his groundbreaking drama 'Slave Play.' There was backlash to the idea in London, where some critics found the practice racially exclusionary. But anything that promotes the communal embrace of art, particularly among historically underrepresented groups, ought to be celebrated. I wasn't the only white person in the audience at 'Berta, Berta' on Sunday, but I was one of just a few. When I had initially learned from the show's publicist that the performance was specially designated, I offered to come at another time, not wanting to take a seat from a community member. But I was assured that there was room and that I was most welcome. Listening to the play in this special environment, I was more alert to the through line of history. Although set in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era, there appeared to be little distance between the characters and the audience. Berta and Leroy's tempestuous love games were met with amused recognition. And the threats facing the couple, to judge by the audible response to the work, were received with knowing empathy. At a different performance, I might have been more impatient with some of the strained dramatic turns. But the production's living bond with the audience opened my eyes to the realism inherent in this folktale romance, laden with history and floating on a song.
