Vallejo celebrates Black excellence and culture at 35th Juneteenth festival

VALLEJO – Nearly 2,000 people spent Saturday in Vallejo’s downtown and waterfront areas, celebrating the Juneteenth holiday with local music, food, art and messages of hope and resilience during hard times. 

Juneteenth marks the day slaves in Galveston, Texas, were freed at the end of the Civil War, along with the full enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation and the historic start of celebrations by newly freed slaves.

Vallejo typically celebrates Juneteenth on the third Saturday of the month, which this year came two days after the official holiday on June 19. 

Regional festivities began with a Freedom Day flag-raising ceremony at the Vallejo Museum on Thursday, and a dialogue with “Radical Reparations” author Marcus Anthony Hunter, co-hosted by Benicia Black Lives Matter, at the Benicia Public Library. The Ethnic Notions gallery on Marin Street also screened the documentary “The Straw that Broke - Silence is Violence” on Friday. 

Early Saturday morning, many of Vallejo’s vendors and nonprofit organizations were already setting up at Barbara Kondylis Waterfront Green in preparation for the parade from Sonoma Boulevard. William Harris was one of those who was ready with his Southern Smokehouse truck from Fairfield to receive food orders, for his third year at the Vallejo Juneteenth festival. 

Harris said his truck is usually “the favorite of the week,” proudly offering Alabama-fried catfish, Texas-style brisket, peach cobbler and the “Bishop” sandwich with Texas brisket and a hot link smothered in cheese, barbecue sauce and chipotle sauce. “That’s the sandwich that made us famous,” he said. “We’ll sell more of that today than anything.”

Harris said he started making barbecue in the Bay after relocating from Kentucky with his wife, where he owned two restaurants. To him, barbecue helps celebrate the diversity of Southern Black culture.

“When I came here, I couldn’t find a barbecue that was like down south,” Harris said. “That’s really why I started it, because I was looking for the barbecue I wanted. A lot of people here are from the South … looking for Southern barbecue. St. Louis, Memphis, Kansas and Texas, they all have their own taste profiles.”

Other organizations say Juneteenth is an important time to raise awareness in the community. Willie Mitchell, a nuclear engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and member of Reservoir of Help Foundation, said he was there to meet with other members of the historic African-American Iota Pi Theta fraternity and recruit youth. 

Mitchell’s chapter has been active since 1973, raising nearly $500,000 in scholarships and motivating young men to attend college. Their ranks include many physicists, architects, reverends and law enforcement officials.

Benicia resident Ashley Warsham was also present tabling with another historic African-American sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, which has been active in the city for 51 years. She said the chapter has come to every Juneteenth celebration in Vallejo, advocating for youth education and voter registration. She and Vallejo resident Tiffanee Jones said they use Juneteenth and other local opportunities to reach and pre-register teenagers for the 2026 primary election, as well as to share a book on Juneteenth with families. 

“One of the most important things for young people to understand is that at 18, their voices are powerful,” Warsham added. “They need to participate. There’s no greater power than exercising your right to vote at the ballot box. And in taking pride in that, regardless of what the results are.”

Vallejo Juneteenth President Don Jordan said the 100 food, merchandise and nonprofit vendors and participants represent “Black excellence and diversity” in Vallejo. He said that since about 1,600 people attended the celebration last year, he expected up to 2,000 for the 2025 festival.  

“We’re the oldest Juneteenth in Solano County. It was started by private citizens in the beginning,” Jordan said. “When it became a national holiday … we got a lot of competition. But nobody’s larger than us in the North Bay.”

The celebration commenced with a parade of people and organizations marching from Tennessee Street and Sonoma Boulevard, to be honored outside the Empress Theatre before marching to the waterfront green. Those in the parade included representatives of the NAACP Vallejo Branch, local children’s dance and martial arts groups, a procession of classic and modern modified cars and the 100-year-old Emma Lee Woodson.

Vallejo High School football coach Jason Plump watched the parade from Virginia Street with his daughter Malaia Plump. He said they attend the Juneteenth celebration each year, “to see everybody and to celebrate, and have fun with friends and family and good food.”

“This one [parade] this year is great,” Malaia said. When asked what she would be eating at the waterfront, she added “I want to eat a funnel cake … and barbecue.” 

Juneteenth celebrators got to spend the next several hours enjoying live music by the waterfront, including by Oakland Rising, Tony Lindsay and the Soul Soldiers. The Hands of Fire Experience and Yaboi Nilo. The festival hosted community groups that offer health and wellness assessments, education, employment opportunities, and financial planning assistance. 

Annett Brooks, who brought her dog Mushu, said she’s lived in Vallejo since 1969 and graduated from Vallejo High School. Despite that she said “This is the first time I’ve been down here.”

“It’s amazing,” she added, motioning at the large groups of children participating to show off their cheerleading and martial arts skills. “The kids are involved, so they’re understanding the history.”