HOUSTON—On June 19 2011, at the AAPDEP 5th Ward Community Garden, in Houston, Texas, the people will come together to celebrate Juneteenth. The Garden is located at 3707 Brill Street in Houston’s Fifth Ward.
Archie Bell, founder and lead singer of the sixties and seventies R&B popular group, “Archie Bell and the Drells” made numerous hit recordings, including “Tighten Up” and “I Just Can’t Stop Dancing.”
The Festival will take place two blocks from where Bell grew up. Bell is always contributing his time and talent for movement causes.
The event, a joint venture of the Office of Chairman Omali Yeshitela and the All African People’s Development and Empowerment Project (AAPDEP) has as its stated goal the development of economic independence for a self-reliant black community.
Chairman Omali Yeshitela will give the keynote address on economic self-reliance on this Juneteenth Fathers Day.
National Black United Front Chairman Kofi Taharka will also give a presentation on mass imprisonment and political prisoners in the U.S.
This event is under the auspices of the One Africa! One Nation! Marketplace! With emphasis on its primary slogan “Juneteenth-Not Yet Uhuru!”
Uhuru is a Swahili word that means “freedom”, and it is plain to see that the African nowhere in the world is free. Thus, “Not Yet Uhuru.”
Juneteenth is a traditional African holiday that began in 1865 in Galveston, Texas where General Gordon Granger, along with thousands of U.S. troops, came ashore at the old Slave Port to announce from the balcony of a plantation mansion that U.S. president Abraham Lincoln had signed a document two years earlier proclaiming the emancipation of African people from chattel slavery.
The good general in his pronouncements advised the captured Africans that they should stay on the plantation and work for their “former” masters, and that his troops would arrest any African who was caught loitering and was without employment.
Since we did not have anything to say on this question one way or the other, more that 140 years ago, we say in 2011 “NOT YET UHURU!”
There will be more than 15 cultural acts at this event, along with numerous vendors, which we see as the beginning of the One Africa! One Nation! Marketplace!
This gathering will help lead us to total emancipation and freedom.
LETS GET UHURU! FORWARD TO JUNETEENTH HOUSTON!
