When Kemone Hendricks started Evanston’s annual Juneteenth parade in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, celebrations included just a car parade and online events. Four years later, the founder and executive director of Evanston Present and Future said the fifth annual celebration will feature floats, music and dance performances at the parade, as well as various.
Kemone Hendricks, founder of Evanston Present and Future is organizing Evanston’s first in-person Juneteenth Parade, which she said will bring the community together to celebrate “America’s real freedom day.”
Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery, honoring the date federal troops arrived in Texas on June 19, 1865 and brought news of freedom to America’s remaining slaves. The Emancipation Proclamation had been issued over two years prior, but the order to free slaves wasn’t followed in parts of the deep South.
Hendricks had planned to host Evanston’s first Juneteenth Parade last year, but celebrations moved online due to COVID-19.