Selma celebrates Juneteenth at Foot Soldiers Park on Monday

Safe Haven Center hosted the second annual Juneteenth celebration at the site of the future Foot Soldiers Park & Education Center next to GWC Homes on Monday.

More than 1,000 people came to the park for music, traditional dancing, food and face painting at the park that serves, for now, as a recreational spot for children with basketball goals and space set up for four square and hopscotch. Watch a video about it here.

Foot Soldiers Park Founder JoAnne Bland said the best part about this year’s “Still We Rise” Juneteenth celebration was having so many kids there to learn more about their history.

“We talk to kids all the time about this,” Bland said. “Teachers at school talk to their classes … it’s important this history is told, especially to children of color.”

Bland said she’s concerned that many schools don’t teach about Juneteenth or accomplishments by Black Americans.

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“Children get their self-worth from teachers, but curriculum doesn’t include a lot about what Black people have done. Riches of this country were built on backs of people who look like us… We are just as much a part of America as everyone else. I love my country even though it’s messed up sometimes,” Bland said with a laugh.

Rev. Michael Bowen with Safe Haven Center said the event is being held as a Freedom Day to recognize the release of the last enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, who didn’t find out they had been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation until two years after, which was 157 years ago.

“You can’t beat freedom, now,” Bowen said. “Freedom is everything.”

This year’s Juneteenth celebration at Foot Soldiers Park – the first at this location – is “just the start,” Bowen said. They hope to have double the attendance next year.

Bland, who grew up at GWC Homes, has been raising money to turn Foot Soldiers Park into a community center with a garden, playground, walking trail and more that will serve as a memorial to foot soldiers of the civil rights movement.