Sunday’s festival in Central Park will mark Henderson’s fifth Juneteenth Celebration.
It’s a milestone that one of its founders didn’t know the celebration would reach when it first started.
“You’ve got to keep the momentum up every year for this,” said Dr. Michelle Chappell, one of the festival’s founders. “You’ve got to have someone be passionate about it.”
This year’s celebration will be 4-7 p.m.
The local Juneteenth Celebration started after a 2022 Henderson Leadership Initiative group organized the festival as its project. According to a post on the “Juneteenth Celebration Henderson Ky” Facebook page, the HLI members included MiOshi Holloway, Ryan Nunn, Tim Miller, Courtney Ferguson and Heath Cox. Chappell and Rev. Charles Johnson partnered with the group.
Each year the celebration features live music and entertainment, talent showcases, food trucks, community and nonprofit booth displays, educational and historical displays, scholarship recognition (this year four will be awarded), and activities for children.
Additionally, Chappell said there will also be dancers, a foam party for kids and singing. Soul ‘n the Pocket will perform.
Part of the mission of the Juneteenth Celebration is to provide opportunities to educate, empower and inspire. Each year, the organization chooses one of those words as the focus of the festival. This year the focus is “empower,” said Chappell.
Another tradition is the addition of Impact Signs to a display put out each year. The Impact Signs are created to recognize people (or institutions) that have played a significant role in the community.
This year, new signs will be on display for Ste’Phan McGuire, a Henderson County High School, Henderson Community College and Murray State University graduate who now is working at Matthew 25 Aids Services.
And Grant Esther Marshall Thomas, a Hendersonian who served in the famed “Six Triple Eight” during World War II, will also be added to the Impact Sign display. Thomas was also heavily involved in the local branch of the NAACP in the 1950s and 1960s. She died in 1966 at 47 years old. Her daughter, Debra McGuire, will be on hand to represent her, Chappell said.
Last year, longtime Henderson County Public Library children’s librarian, Glenda Langley Dixon, and Henderson Fire Department Assistant Chief Willie Curry, Jr., were Impact Sign recipients.
They join past and present local luminaries (and one school) that include:
- Bobbie Jarrett, current executive director of the Housing Authority of Henderson with more than 40 years of service to the community
- Thomas L. Platt, served the community in many capacities, including service in the Army, working at the Earle C. Clements Job Corps for 23 years and numerous boards
- Robert Pruitt, a current Henderson city commissioner first elected in 2008
- Rev. Dr. Anthony Brooks, Sr., a civil rights advocate in both Henderson and Evansville, past president of Henderson and Evansville NAACP branches, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
- Rev. Dr. Adrian Brooks, Sr., a pastor of Henderson churches who was also a social activist in his time in the community, now the pastor of Memorial Baptist Church of Evansville
- Darlene Marshall-Ware, a social worker by trade who is also involved in many community causes and has served on the United Way board and is a founding member of the homeless coalition
- Anthony Black, current principal of South Heights Elementary School
- Laverne F. Dixon, the first African American female deputy at the Henderson County Sheriff’s Office
- Deborah Hoda, the current president of the local NAACP
- Anthony Melvin, a special education teacher at South Heights Elementary School and member of the Audubon Kids Zone board
- Douglass High School, the local Black high school before the end of segregation
