Before lunch time on June 19, 2024, A’Keia Sanders was busy helping several food trucks navigate their way into the Glow Plaza, as a Juneteenth event previously scheduled as a parade on Virginia Street pivoted to the 4th street location for food, music with a local DJ and games.
“This is a pilot event, the first of its kind on the day of here, “ the programming chair for the Northern Nevada Black Cultural Awareness Society explained. Several of the food trucks are run by Black-owned businesses, including Wing King of Reno and the Potluck.
“It’s a good time to hang out. We are asking for a $5 donation, but entry is free. We'll have some of the beverage stations open with free water,” she said.
“We are bringing the community out and together, educating them because I know that this is a new holiday that has been passed in our state as well as nationally, is very controversial and a lot of people don't understand it. So we try to be that middle person to give that education with love as well as unify, unify our community,” she further explained.
The new Nevada state holiday, established last year, recognizes the historic day of June 19th, 1865 when remaining enslaved Black Americans were finally freed in Galveston, Texas, two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sanders, a Georgia native, who served in the U.S. Navy says she celebrates both July 4th and Juneteenth.
“We're not trying to deter from we are Americans and we're not trying to deter from other holidays. I think the big thing is education, because a lot of people just don't know and they're afraid to ask, you know?” she said.
Her last duty station was in Fallon, which then brought her to northern Nevada in Spanish Springs, where she now lives with her husband and two boys.
“We’ve decided to make this community our home and we're invested in making it better,” she says.
Sanders now works as the deputy director of the Nevada Governor's office of Federal Assistance, trying to lift Nevada from its current position of being 48th in the nation in receiving federal funding.
“We want to educate in a friendly environment and bring the community out, have a good time, but still make them aware of some of the things that went on through history that affected us as Black Americans that is American history,” she concluded before going back to getting the important local festivities going.