Saturday, June 14th, 2025
Santa Cruz Juneteenth celebrates Black Liberation and Freedom for our 34th year at Laurel Park
behind the historic London Nelson Community Center in downtown Santa Cruz, 12 - 5pm.
Our theme this year is:
Body, Mind and Soul.
Join us for Music, Dance, Poetry from the
Diaspora, nourishing soul food, craft booths,
help create the Ancestors Altar. Move your
body with our Moments of Movements
instructors and dance to the park in our 2nd
Line Sidewalk Parade with a live brass and
drum band.
Always FREE, there's plenty of activities for children too, including the sack race and the basketball clinic.
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Santa Cruz Juneteenth
In 1991, Raymond Evans, then Assistant Director of the Louden Nelson Center, introduced Juneteenth to Santa Cruz. As a Texas native, Evans was surprised by the lack of Juneteenth recognition in Santa Cruz, and aimed to bring the celebration's sense of community and pride to the city. The festivities at Louden Nelson Community Center have since been a great success, thanks to their diverse offerings. The event also honors former slave London "Louden" Nelson, a local legend known for his generosity to the school system, who has been a cultural symbol in Santa Cruz for over a century.
Juneteenth
Juneteenth marks the day the last group of enslaved African Americans learned that they were free on June 19, 1866. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective 1863, there was difficulty getting it implemented in places that were still under Confederate control. When some 200 Union troops came to Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced that the 250,000 enslaved blacks were liberated by executive decree. It was a jubilee. That day is known as Juneteenth and is African American Independence Day.
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Juneteenth is now a federal holiday. You can learn more about America's second Independence day here.
