The walls of the Foundry Christian Community Center reverberated with the sounds of loud chatter, running children and music as Bowling Green came to celebrate Juneteenth.
The seventh annual Juneteenth event bridged together culture and community through its local Black vendor market and community resource booths. Hosted by the Bowling Green Freedom Walkers at the Foundry Christian Community Center, the event featured trivia games, performances by local artists and food stands.
A grassroots organization, the BG Freedom Walkers was formed by community members in response to injustices both in Kentucky and across the country.
“We’re just on the streets, feet to the pavement, just trying to affect change in our community,” said Onya Bell, member of BG Freedom Walkers.
The event on Saturday centered around the celebration of Juneteenth, commemorating the day the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
With one of the organization’s tenets focusing on community, gathering different community organizations and businesses to spread awareness goes towards their mission.
“It’s all about awareness and exposure, and so being able to have these individuals on the ground with us, and to show that we are in community with them is really a very big deal,” Bell said.
Throughout the four-hour event, people were able to shop local from the various vendors selling food, homemade crafts and artisanal goods.
Owner and founder of November Rae Co. Shatoya Yabrough spent the day selling her wax melts, candles and aromas. Yabrough has participated in the vendor market for the past two years, and said the experience has always been warm and welcoming with customers and other vendors.
“It’s important because we, as small businesses, it’s kind of hard to get ourselves out there, so networking is always important,” Yabrough said.
Among the vendors were booths featuring a large array of local organizations with community resources, such as the Warren County Democrats, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth and the American Red Cross.
Like many organizations present, Cassandra Little used the event as an opportunity to encourage people to be civically engaged. Representing both the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, she gave out information about voter registration and other ways to get involved in the community.
“If we can help them find out resources that they may not know about, they can be a part of making a difference to other people, because it takes all of us working together to make Bowling Green,” Little said.
When not shopping and learning, people could participate in a Juneteenth trivia contest, play spades and cornhole or listen to the musical stylings of local performers.
Adding to the goal of awareness, the Freedom Walkers also took time to share the history of Jonesville and Shake Rag, two prominent Black communities in Bowling Green.
For Dharlene Markel, a member of the BG Freedom Walkers, she hopes that people at the event take away that differences can be put aside to have a good time.
“None of us are free until we’re all free,” Markel said. “So no matter the color of your skin or the place that you work, where you live, it takes all of us.”
