How Portland Celebrates Juneteenth | Portland Monthly
Valerie June plays Revolution Hall Friday and Saturday this week.
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When Joe Biden made Juneteenth a federal holiday in 2021, it was the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was adopted in 1983. But Thursday marks 160 years, not four, since a Union general in Texas ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation, officially abolishing slavery in the US on June 19, 1865. The anniversary has been celebrated ever since, though the name Juneteenth dates to the 1890s, and its adoption as a federal holiday certainly increased the festivities.
Like everything Portland does, the city puts its own spin on Juneteenth. The Black Liberation Ride, now its 10th year, celebrates emancipation via bike. Meet Thursday at 6pm at Irving Park for, as organizers describe, “a moment to come together, take up space, and celebrate in solidarity by riding around Portland.” Juneteenth of course overlaps with Pride month, and perhaps most directly at History of Black Drag in Portland, a panel discussion and drag show that’s part of the Race Talks series at McMenamins Kennedy School. Hosted by Lawanda Jackson and Isaiah Esquire, and now in its fourth year, the event showcases local Black drag history as a way to bridge gaps between queer communities and people of color.
Following the model of a party with educational undertones, The Black Gallery is throwing a Juneteenth Cookout (noon–4pm, Thursday) in partnership with Don’t Shoot PDX. Kee’s Loaded Kitchen is doing the cooking. And the community art center and gallery will be screen-printing shirts and bags (bring your own goods to print on) and giving out banned books and art supplies to kids. Saturday is perhaps the longest ongoing event. Celebrating its 53rd year, the Juneteenth Oregon Celebration runs noon–7pm at Lillis-Albina Park. A parade lands at the park, where a pop-up market, games, and food carts and a beer and wine garden surround a stage with a day of concerts organized by PDX Jazz.
More Things to Do This Week
COMEDY Nicole Byer
Thu–Sat, June 19–21 | Helium Comedy Club, $34+
Byer is all the things a modern, humor-based celebrity is supposed to be—TV and podcast host, author, voice and onscreen actor. And of course she does stand-up. But she’s constantly pushing boundaries in all of these venues. In 2020, she became the first Black woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program for her work on Netflix’s Nailed It!. That same year, she published a book of over a hundred annotated pictures of herself in a bikini, titled #VERYFAT #VERYBRAVE. Without sacrificing a drop of humor to do so, Byer manages to pull progressive race commentary and body positivity messages through all of the above, never more than in her stand-up.
FILM Power of Place
7PM Thu, June 19 | Tomorrow Theater, $15
The Portland Art Museum’s movie theater is celebrating Juneteenth with two short films directed by Portlander Devin Boss, both of which spotlight the city’s Black community. Dear Young Black Portland is about Sharon Gary-Smith, the former NAACP Portland president now in her 70s, and is billed as a “visual letter” to the next generation. In Where We Goin: The Power of Place, Boss interviews local figures of Black culture past and present, questioning the place that shaped his own identity and seeking insights into the future. After the screening, Boss will host a panel discussion onstage with Michael Alexander, the former president and CEO of the Urban League of Portland; Donovan Scribes, a writer and producer who worked on both films; and local artist and curator Intisar Abioto.
MUSIC Valerie June
8PM FRI & SAT JUNE 20 & 21 | REVOLUTION HALL, $35+
Growing up in Tennessee might account, at least partially, for June’s uncategorizable marriage of musical genres. She sings with a sweet, tight-lipped and winsome Tennessee drawl that floats effortlessly over pretty much anything. Writing in 2017, in The New Yorker, about the hope he found in June’s songs that managed to make “something new spun out of old materials,” Pulitzer winner Hua Hsu pointed out her “girl-group sprightliness,” a “bluesy lament,” the feeling of a “garage-rock-tinged slow dance,” and “the spacey atmospherics of a seventies soul gem” in a single sentence about a single song. Her latest album, Owls, Omens, and Oracles, came out in April.
Elsewhere…
- On Portlander Vera Brosgol’s new illustrated children’s novel, Return to Sender. (New York Times)
- A walk through Oregon State University’s Silicon Forest. (Variable West)
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