Juneteenth Celebrations Set Across LA County: Walk For Freedom, Luncheon, Live Music

LOS ANGELES, CA — Juneteenth in Los Angeles County Thursday will include a walk in Pacoima honoring the woman dubbed the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" and various events in Altadena, Palmdale and Manhattan Beach.

Registration for the annual "Opal's Walk for Freedom" will begin at 6 a.m. and the walk starting at 7 a.m. at Hillery T. Broadous Elementary School in Pacoima. It will conclude at Pacoima City Hall.

The walk coincides with a similar event in Fort Worth, Texas, which the event's namesake, Opal Lee, is set to participate.

Lee, now 98, campaigned for decades to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, a quest that came to fruition on June 17, 2021 when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, with Lee in attendance for the signing ceremony in the East Room of the White House.

Lee is known as the "Grandmother of Juneteenth" for her walking campaign she began when she was 89 to get the day be declared a national holiday. Lee describes herself as "just a little old lady in tennis shoes getting in everybody's business."

The 2 1/2-mile distance honors the 2 1/2 years it took to inform the enslaved people of Texas of the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Sept. 22, 1862, declaring all slaves free in Confederate territory as of Jan. 1, 1863.

Following the walk, signs will be unveiled designating the intersection of Van Nuys Boulevard and Kewen Avenue as Nancy C. Avery Square, honoring the first Black postmaster of a "first class" post office since Reconstruction.

Avery was the postmaster of the Pacoima Post Office from 1961 until her retirement in 1984. "First class" post offices are determined based on revenue and in 1961 the Pacoima Post Office was among the 11.6% of the locations that qualified for designation, according to the motion by Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez that designated the intersection in Avery's honor.

Before her appointment by Postmaster General J. Edward Day, the only other Black postmasters had worked in small rural post offices, according to an obituary of Avery supplied by organizers of the event, citing information from the U.S. Postal Service.

Avery was also an active volunteer with the Democratic Party and NAACP and president of what is now the Board of Animal Services Commissioners. She died in 1992 at age 72.

The Altadena Historical Society's fourth annual Juneteenth celebration luncheon will feature a preview of the Altadena oral history project titled, "Faces of Resilience: The African American Cultural Legacy Before & After the Eaton Canyon Fire.

The luncheon will also include the Ellen Garrison Clark Scholarship Award Ceremony with scholarships awarded to local high school students in the spirit of Ellen Garrison Clark, the 19th century educator, abolitionist and early Civil Rights activist who spent the final two years of her life in Pasadena and is buried in Altadena.

The luncheon will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Loma Alta Park. Tickets are $30 in advance and $35 at the door and can be purchased on the society's website.

A Juneteenth celebration including live music, a classic car show, food vendors and various family-friendly activities will be held at Poncitlán Square in Palmdale from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell and Mayor Amy Thomas Howorth will speak at Manhattan Beach's Juneteenth ceremony at Bruce's Beach Park from 10 to 11 a.m.

A Juneteenth Celebration and Concert will be held Sunday at Polliwog Park in Manhattan Beach from 2 to 7 p.m.

In honor of Juneteenth, admission at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and La Brea Tar Pits from 3-5 p.m.

Juneteenth marks the anniversary of Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger reading General Order No. 3 in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, which began, "The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."

U.S. post offices will be closed and mail will not be delivered on Wednesday. All federal offices, schools and banks will be closed.

By Steven Herbert, City News Service