9 hours ago
St. Paul's Rondo neighborhood celebrates Juneteenth, honoring families' resilience
On Juneteenth, the Rondo neighborhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, gathered to honor a history of resilience.
"They had a rhythm in Rondo, it had a different vibe than any other place in the city of St. Paul," said Marvin Anderson, director of the Rondo Center of Diverse Expression.
Once home to a thriving Black community, Rondo was upended by the construction of Interstate 94 in the late 1950s. Hundreds of homes and businesses were demolished to make way for the freeway, displacing countless families.
"I-94 totally destroyed the Rondo community. It was a complete and utter devastation of the businesses, the social institutions and cultural institutions," Anderson said. "A lot of our stories, our journeys, are filled with pain."
Anderson's family was directly impacted by the construction.
"It was a devastating event for my family, and when I left here I had never gone back to the home I grew up in," he said.
For Allison Williams, her parents witnessed first-hand what it was like to watch the construction.
"I remember stories of my mom, when she was a newly-wed. They came out and stood and watched the bulldozers tearing up what used to be their neighborhood," Williams said.
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But this year's Juneteenth celebration was a reminder that Rondo's spirit could never be broken.
"Our values in Rondo were timeless, just like the values that people learned on the plantation. They've lasted for 400 years," he said. "How did we survive in America unless we had a set of values that we were able to transmit to each other? That's what sustained us here, our sense of who we are and where we came from."
The event featured speakers from four Rondo families, reminding the next generation what their families had to go through and how they have stayed resilient over time.
"With memories of the elders of Rondo, they are translated to the imaginations of the youth of Rondo," he said.
The event was an opportunity for those in attendance to reflect on how far the neighborhood has come since the I-94 construction. Anderson hopes the Rondo neighborhood can grow with the proposed plan to build a land bridge over I-94 to reconnect the neighborhood that was torn apart by the construction.
If you would like to be a part of preserving this rich legacy, there are plenty of upcoming events in the neighborhood, like Rondo Days in July.
Click here for a list of Juneteenth events in the Twin Cities.
