The annual Sun Prairie Juneteenth Celebration will have a variety of family-friendly activities, performances, community resources, cultural vendors, and a free community meal on Thursday, June 19, 4-7 p.m. at Wetmore Park on Sun Prairie’s East Side.
“This will be our ninth annual Juneteenth Celebration,” Teran Peterson, a longtime organizer of Sun Prairie Juneteenth, tells Madison365. “This year, we’re gonna be bringing back all of the favorites, a free dinner for everybody — we’ve got wings and burgers, hot dogs, brats. We’ve got some catered food from a local Black BBQ shop out in Waterloo called CJs. We will have our grill masters doing their things on the grill, including Jerreh Kujabi of Sun Prairie Schools; Reggie Williams, a youth advocate at Sun Prairie East; Terrell Outlay, a Sun Prairie realtor; David Virgil, the first Black City alder; and Nehemriah Barrett, the new principal of Prairie Phoenix Academy.”
The event will feature Juneteenth educational activities and speakers, performances, face painting, a resource fair, family activities, and athletic activities including double dutch and kickball.
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“We will have so many fun activities. We’re going to have the hair braiders back and the free haircuts sponsored by Mr. Rudd’s Barbershop,” Peterson says. “The Afrobeat dancers will be there. We’ll have some performers from the local North Sky Poetry Club. We’ll have performers from the Prairie View Dance Team. There’ll be some storytellers reading books all day.
“DJ M. White will be playing tunes for us all day. This will be his last gig before he moves away,” Peterson adds.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, a day when African-American slaves in Texas were told by Union forces that they were free. They were the final group of slaves to realize their freedom. Deep in the Confederacy, they were unaware of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation almost two years earlier. A celebration of the day has been held annually in Texas ever since, which eventually spread to other states.
“We live in a time of instant knowledge now. We live in such a fast-paced day and age where people tweet things right when they happen and we have to remember that the simple message of the end of slavery took years to get to Texas,” Peterson says. “I know many people like to celebrate July 4, but Juneteenth, to me, feels like the day when we were all free.
“There’s so much I love about Sun Prairie Juneteenth, but I think the food is the best part,” Peterson adds, laughing. “Sun Prairie has such beautiful parks and we’re so lucky to be able to host it at Wetmore Park. We’ve been doing this event for nine years now and we’ve never had a single issue. We’ve never had the police call. Unfortunately, there are so many negative stereotypes about large groups of Black folks getting together in one space, and we have never had an issue.”
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While the city of Madison has been hosting a Juneteenth celebration since 1990, the Sun Prairie Juneteenth is still relatively new. Since Sun Prairie’s Juneteenth is on Thursday and Madison’s is on Saturday, a lot of people like to hit both celebrations. Peterson encourages people to come out and see what they have going on in Sun Prairie and its growing African-American community.
“I know that African-American students represent about 15 percent of the Sun Prairie school district population. I know that that number has grown exponentially in the last 10 years,” she says. “I think there are a lot of folks that find their way into Sun Prairie. We don’t have a ton of folks out here in Sun Prairie, so Juneteenth often feels like a family reunion.
“There are so many Black folks who have worked together, have raised their kids together, have had experienced life growing up together, that Juneteenth offers the opportunity for folks to come back and spend some time and enjoy some food and time together,” Peterson adds.
Peterson stresses that everybody is welcome at Sun Prairie Juneteenth.
“I think it’s a great way to kick off summer,” she says. “Juneteenth is just a day of celebration. People come out and see their kids performing, and they love it. There’s a little bit of competitiveness with the kickball game and the Double Dutch. There’s just all-around great vibes from the music.”
Wetmore Park is located at 555 North Street in Sun Prairie.
