Tulsa Juneteenth celebration draws large crowd
TULSA — Despite bouts of rain, more than 2,000 people converged on the historic Greenwood District on Friday to celebrate June teen th with music, food and a call to continue the fight for equality for all Americans.
Individuals and families walked along Greenwood Avenue, stopping at food trucks and T-shirt vendors. The event, themed “I, Too, Am America ,” featured musicians and other entertainment who took to the stage set up in a field outside the historic Vernon African Methodist Episcopal Church.
One of the highlights of the day was a much-anticipated presentation by the Rev.
Al Sharp ton, whose fiery preaching has been on full display since George Floyd's death on Memorial Day.
Sharpton came to spend June teen thin Tulsa at the invitation of Tiffany
Crutcher, the twin sister of Terence Crutcher, an unarmed Black man who was killed by then-Tulsa police officer Betty Shelby in 2016.
Tiffany Crutcher said Sharpton came to Tulsa to support the Crutcher family after her brother's death. She founded the Terence Crutch er Foundation, which is a host of this year's Juneteenth event.
"He walked with me then and whenever I have called him, he has come," Crutcher said to introduce Sharpton to the media on Friday.
Dressed in a grey pinstriped suit, the preacher and founder and p re sident of National Action Network, reminded the crowd that he had just preached at the funeral of another unarmed Black man, George Floyd, a week ago. Floyd died on May 25 after Derek Ch au vin, a white Minneapolis police officer, knelt on his neck for almost nine minutes, a series of events captured on video.
Sharp ton said his role in the celebration of June teen th 2020 is to remind the Black community, and America as a whole, that the struggle for freedom is far from over.
June teen this a ho liday commemorating the emancipation of Black slaves in America. He said Black people celebrate the holiday on June 19, because even though they had been freed, slave sin Texas didn't know they had been emancipated until that date.
Sharp ton said their descendants are still fighting for freedom.
"Even after that, we went through 100 years of Jim Crow and went through periods after that where we couldn't vote and now we're in an area where we're treated differently even in a pandemic — the health disparities — t he disparities in criminal justice and all of this. So the proper place for me to be is to remind us how far we've come and how f ar we've yet to go."
Meanwhile, s evera lTul sans said they enjoyed seeing a bigger crowd than usual gathered for June teen thin the Greenwood District.
"It' s always been very meaningful. You k now, this is our independence,” said Lynda Vaughn.
Chan tel le Ballard and April Lee, both of Muskogee, said much the same thing.
“We just came to celebrate Juneteenth,” Ballard said.
Lee said: “It's a beautiful thing.”
Starr Fisher, whose Starr Productions helped produce the event, said Friday' s crowd was one of the largest she had seen in along while for the Juneteenth celebration in Greenwood District.