City cancels event celebrating end of slavery, angers community
The cancellation of an African-American event by the city has many in the community in uproar.
Organizers of the 2 nd Annual Juneteenth Celebration said the city canceled the Saturday event at the last minute, and they’re very upset.
Organizers Reverend Markco Lee King, Solid Rock Ministries, said, “Right now people are standing outside for a Juneteenth celebration which was supposed to be taking place inside the community center here in El Centro.”
Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery. King calls it the African-Americans Fourth of July.
“I’ve done everything the city’s asked me to do. I was called by a city employee on yesterday saying that everything was good to go. The doors are locked because, as we just found out, the paperwork that was required for the city-sponsored event was not correct,” King said.
He said some people came from out of town for the event and this cancellation was a harsh blow to them.
“And we do all of the legwork. The NAACP. Black Lives Matter. Social Justice. Everybody came together to work with the city to put this program on, only for the city an hour beforehand to say, no, not interested,” King said.
He said it’s an insult to everyone because it makes it seem that some people’s heritage is not respected.
“The community expects the city to be there for the community. Right now we’re standing outside of the Community Center that the community can’t use,” King said.
Local performer Ambrose Dawson said, “Basically what this is saying to me is that black lives don’t matter because they could’ve told us beforehand – they could’ve told us beforehand but they waited until after the time of when the event was supposed to initially happen.”
We spoke with City Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker about this sudden cancellation. She said she was just as confused and frustrated about it as the organizers and intends to find out more information about it. She said she wants the event to have another opportunity, perhaps be rescheduled. She was going to be the key speaker at Saturday’s event.
Reverend King said he plans to be at the regular city council meeting on Tuesday to get an explanation about the cancellation. He invites the community to join him.
“The last word given was, Reverend king, you’re good to go. We’ll have someone there to open the doors; we’ll have someone there to lock the doors. They changed their minds,” King said.
Reverend King said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People had been made aware of the situation. We tried to contact the NAACP but they were not available for comment.
