Celebrate Juneteenth with the Heat’s Udonis Haslem at food and music event
The founder of Miami’s annual Juneteenth Music & Food Festival is ready to celebrate with extra gusto this June 19.
That’s because Congress voted to make Juneteenth, the day celebrating the end of slavery in America, a national holiday. President Joe Biden is expected to sign the bill into law.
In Miami-Dade, county commissioners already voted to make the annual celebration a paid holiday.
“I know I’m going to dance a little harder this year,” said Starex Smith, event organizer and blogger The Hungry Black Man, who has been commemorating the day with an annual music and dining event.
The Juneteenth Music & Food Festival will be a free three-day event this year, from Friday to Sunday, with organized activities in Aventura, Miami Beach and Overtown.
It ends with the only ticketed event, a $50 sitdown dinner featuring a meal hosted by Miamiborn Miami Heat player Udonis Haslem to honor “unsung heroic fathers from all over South Florida,” the festival wrote. Tickets are available online.
“UD is one of the most philanthropic people I’ve ever met,” Smith said.
The festival begins Friday with an Overtown concert led by “The
Four” contestant Ronnie Smith Jr. and other artists from Miami’s underground
R&B music scene, Smith said. Food from Orlando chef Jenn Ross, who is planning to open a vegan restaurant in Miami in the fall, will be available for purchase.
The North Beach Bandshell is the venue for Saturday’s main event, which will be from noon until 7 p.m. and which Miami Beach board of commissioners voted to sponsor. Music will set the background for a walk-around tasting of Black diaspora food, including Mississippi blue crab and Afro-Caribbean cuisine.
Haslem’s Aventura restaurant, 800 Degrees Woodfired Kitchen, a franchise location that he co-owns with former
Heat star Dwyane Wade, hosts Sunday’s event. The spot’s head chef will create two menus, including a $50 vegan one. Twelve father figures will also be honored at the event, Smith said.
“It’s a celebration of Black dads,” Smith said. “You have a lot of nontraditional families and non-biological father figures who do an incredible job.”