Juneteenth NYC: A celebration of history and culture

[00:00:00]19th NYC is celebrating its 17th year with a weekend of events honoring freedom, culture, and community. And joining us now with all the details is founder and executive director Athena Rodney. Thank you so much for being here again, especially in the midst of all of the insanity that is this weekend.

[00:00:19]>> Absolutely.

[00:00:20]>> It takes a village to pull this all off, right?

[00:00:22]>> it really does.

[00:00:23]>> So, you started actually last night. You kicked it off. This was after the Knicks day. So, thank you for bringing us the the ticker-tape parade first to truly kick it [laughter] off. It was your Black Kings Gala honoring black male leaders making a difference, right? Tell us about how that coalesces and comes together.

[00:00:39]>> Oh my gosh. So, last night was really amazing. We had everyone We had over 200 individuals come out. We celebrated 23 men, um and we just honored them. We poured into them. The men are the crux of our community, and um that was the reason why I started the the Black Kings Gala so that we can really celebrate all of the things that they are, um and it's Father's Day this weekend, right?

[00:01:04]So, um tell me about that.

[00:01:06]>> It really comes together beautifully.

[00:01:08]>> It does. And let's talk uh more about the theme. It's rooted in strength, our legacy, our freedom, our future.

[00:01:15]>> Absolutely. So, rooted in strength is our theme for this year.

[00:01:20]Um the reason why we wanted to to kind of focus on that as our theme, um this year has been so challenging. So much resilience was needed to get through this year. I mean, even through this week.

[00:01:31]>> Yeah. We needed to tap into our energy reserves. We needed to tap into our energy reserves.

[00:01:36]>> [laughter] >> Um between the the the ticker-tape uh for the Knicks and and just everything happening in New York City, right? So, it's been about resilience, and that has been the story of African Americans from the beginning. Um and so, we wanted to just talk about the strength of that we bring to everything that we do.

[00:01:53]>> And I love the fact that in In to the in-person event, you're holding a virtual summit and you're bringing together educators, leaders, entrepreneurs. Talk about what people can get from that by being a part of that and being exposed to so many change makers.

[00:02:09]>> Sure.

[00:02:10]So today, actually in a couple of a couple of minutes, we're going to be going live for our virtual summit.

[00:02:16]That's an opportunity for people across the world to be able to tap in to just to to to stand with us for Juneteenth because today is Juneteenth, right? June 19th, the day that we celebrate the freedom, not so much about the inherent slavery or enslaved that we were, but all of the things that we have become since then.

[00:02:38]All of the the accomplishments accomplishments that we've made, especially here in New York City.

[00:02:44]Like we have made so many >> of it all.

[00:02:47]We are the center of it all and we definitely saw that this year.

[00:02:50]>> Yeah, and can people still get in on the virtual summit?

[00:02:52]>> Absolutely. All that you need to do is go to our website juneteenthny.com.

[00:02:56]>> Oh, all right, perfect. I mean and it doesn't end today.

[00:02:59]>> No.

[00:02:59]>> You know there's there's a parade.

[00:03:01]>> There is a parade.

[00:03:02]>> There's the the Juneteenth the festival the >> festival. Everything going on tomorrow, June 20th. We are excited about that.

[00:03:08]That is going to be so much fun. We start off at 9:30 with our parade. We have marching bands, we have step groups, we have dance groups, you name it. We have a couple of hundred people signed up to participate, especially our organizations from our community, our vendors, and then we have a showcase and a performance. We have a fashion show. So >> All of this is on the website.

[00:03:31]>> because there are so many different locations that you're you're dealing with.

[00:03:34]>> Absolutely.

[00:03:35]>> Okay, and we cannot talk about Juneteenth without talking about celebration through food and the restaurant crawl.

[00:03:41]>> Yes. Absolutely.

[00:03:43]Food is I say king We're going to say this weekend food is king.

[00:03:48]>> [laughter] >> In addition to our black kings.

[00:03:51]>> to our black kings. So we have a couple of restaurants that we are working with that this week and we are encouraging people to go out to our restaurant. So, we have Oh my gosh, Fuse East in East New York and then we have Brooklyn Blends and then we have Basquiat so those are our restaurants that we encouraging people to go and attend.

[00:04:10]>> Oh, wonderful.

[00:04:10]>> That is really so many amazing things happening.

[00:04:12]>> Yes, thank you.

[00:04:13]>> Ateni, thank you so much for making time in between all these events to come in and talk about everything and teach people how they can be a part of it. For more on how you can be a part, visit, participate back here next year.

[00:04:27]>> Thank you.