Block party will start Juneteenth celebration

This year’s Juneteenth Celebration in Lawton has a lot to offer.

The celebration kicks off at 5 p.m. Friday with a block party on Southwest C Avenue between Southwest 4th Street and Southwest 5th Street in downtown Lawton, according to a release. Visitors can enjoy music, food, shopping, entertainment and more during the four-hour event.

On the south end of Southwest C Avenue, show cars will line up. In the middle of the streets, visitors will find vendors and resource tents, and on the north side, there will be a kids zone with bounce houses, face painting and more. Food trucks are available on the east side at the intersection of Southwest 4th Street.

“We encourage all families to come out,” Bishop John Dunaway said.

The actual celebration ceremony of Juneteenth starts at 3:30 p.m. Saturday in the auditorium of the Albert Johnson Sr. Conference Center at Douglass Learning Center, 102 E. Gore. At the heart of the ceremony is the performance of a drama called “Absolute Freedom!”

“It’s a fantastic narration, I encourage everybody to come out and see it,” Dunaway said.

“We want to educate people on what Juneteenth is,” Gradie Shawn Green, who wrote the play, said. “We cannot take freedom for granted.”

The play deals with the question if slavery is actually a thing of the past or if society is still affected by the “aftershocks,” as Green calls it. The main character, Aunt Mattie, is played by LaTonya Simon. Throughout the play, she will establish that freedom is a gift that must be nurtured instead of being taken for granted. The cast is a group of volunteers, with some of them having experience with various local theaters.

After the ceremony, visitors will then go to the Patterson Center across the street at No. 4 NE Arlington Drive for food, festivities and fun, as well as activities for kids, Dunaway said. The event is scheduled to last until 7 p.m.

According to the United States Capitol Historical Society, Juneteenth marks the day, June 19, 1865, when a general of the Union Army, Gordon Granger, arrived in Galveston, Texas. He then demanded the state’s more than 250,000 enslaved people to be set free. On June 17, 2021, Juneteenth was officially recognized as federal holiday.