For Juneteenth celebrants, it’s a time to reflect – and regroup

For Lolita Davis Carter, the cultural changes brought on by President Donald Trump’s executive orders on diversity have resulted in fear and confusion across her community – but they have also provided a time for reflection.

The legislative and policy director at the Council for Minnesotans of African Heritage, Carter was on hand Saturday for the Loppet Foundation’s Juneteenth Fun Run in Theodore Wirth Regional Park in Minneapolis – a community event that she saw as the perfect place for people affected by Trump’s actions to consider next steps.

“We wanna calm that panic down and make you start strategizing on how we can get through this because we’ve been through this before,” she explained. 

Among the changes wrought by Trump are executive orders targeting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, including changes to how corporations and federal agencies celebrate cultural holidays. So, along with celebrations marking the holiday Thursday come questions and anxieties about how Juneteenth will look in the future. 

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Related: A guide to what the Juneteenth holiday is and how to celebrate it

The Juneteenth Fun Run began with speeches from the run’s 2025 honoree, Michael Tate, and Rondo community leader Floyd G. Smaller Jr., followed by a kids’ half-mile run and the main 5K event.

Proponents of both DEI and affirmative action tend to view Trump’s executive orders as a precursor to or a direct attack on civil rights. But Trump’s attitude toward Juneteenth and other cultural celebrations and initiatives hasn’t always been negative. In his 2020 campaign, for instance, he floated the idea of Juneteenth becoming a national holiday. Former President Joe Biden, having won the 2020 election, signed the bill into law making June 19 a federal holiday. 

The shift away from DEI under the current Trump administration means attending Juneteenth events has political in addition to historical meaning.

“Basically, because of our history and because of the times that are going on right now, it makes it very important for us to show our support for these events that are trying to be canceled,” fun run volunteer Jamila Smith said. “We are here. We are not going anywhere.” 

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Besides the Loppet run, other Juneteenth events in the area held last weekend included a freedom walk to Midtown Global Market and a celebration of freedom in Bethune Park.

North Minneapolis’ Bethune Park is actually the origin of Minneapolis-area Juneteenth celebrations dating to the 1980s. Theodore Wirth Regional Park became a hotspot for celebrations in the 1990s. 

The Juneteenth holiday began in 1865 as a celebration of the news of the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation reaching African-Americans enslaved in Galveston, Texas. But it’s been only two years since Minnesota declared Juneteenth a state holiday and four years since it was declared a federal holiday. 

The creation of the Juneteenth Fun Run was spearheaded by Loppet Adventures Director DeAnna Smith as a way to promote community and relationships at Theodore Wirth Regional Park.

“They get to be connected to projects and programs that we have going on here and be reminded that this is an asset in their backyard that they can utilize,” Smith said. 

Equity in green spaces

The fun run also serves as a way to promote outdoor recreation and address inadequate access to green spaces in predominantly Black areas. 

The University of Minnesota’s Mapping Prejudice, a project that looks at structural racism in Minneapolis housing, found that majority nonwhite neighborhoods like the historically Black Near North Minneapolis neighborhood are less likely to have tree canopy cover and park acreage than majority white neighborhoods.

“We know that racism is a barrier to the outdoors and, at the Loppet, we’re trying to break down a lot of those barriers,” Loppet Events Director Kelly Donahue said.

For some people, celebrating Juneteenth is about more than barbecues and community events. It’s about reflecting on and addressing the impact slavery and racism have had on the African American community. “It’s got to be a point where it’s really recognizable and some important things come out of it, like reparations,” Floyd G. Smaller Jr. said.  

Juneteenth festivities are set to continue in the Minneapolis area with a performance by the Minneapolis Orchestra, a block party on West Broadway, a Southside festival at the intersection of East Lake Street and Minnehaha Avenue, and historical tours at Fort Snelling, all planned for Thursday.

Editor’s note: This story was written by Kabedi Mutamba, a reporting intern with MinnPost.

This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

MinnPost is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization whose mission is to provide high-quality journalism for people who care about Minnesota.