South Bay Juneteenth Event Aims To 'Transform Black Experience'

LOS GATOS, CA — A South Bay nonprofit organization will hold a two-day virtual festival this weekend to celebrate Juneteenth.

The inaugural HUEmankind Fest, which will take place on June 26 and 27, is sponsored by Santa Clara County and aims to bring kinship and kindness to Silicon Valley. The free festival will feature performances, workshops and a social justice hackathon.

The festival is being organized by AWỌ, which was founded by Los Gatos resident Folake Phillips in 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Phillips, an immigrant from Nigeria, told Patch that the idea of the festival is to find “new, creative ways to think about kindness and human kinship.”

“We proposed this festival to transform the Black experience and find ways to collectively move from being disconnected to some form of a connection by unpacking the different shapes of Black identity in our world,” Phillips said. “I plan to do this through storytelling, lots of interactive dialogue and collective problem solving.”

AWỌ, which is the word for “skin” and “color” in the Yoruba language of Nigeria, holds programs and community workshops, with a goal of creating opportunities for people who have been historically unheard or misrepresented.

Phillips said she received immediate support from the county when she proposed the idea, especially from Supervisor Otto Lee. The festival will be virtual this year, but organizers are planning for in-person annual festivals beginning next year.

Speakers in the festival include Dr. Natoschia Scruggs, African dance artist Antoine Hunter and Vietnamese American storyteller Quyenzi Dang Pham.

Tyson Amir, a local author, will headline the festival as a spoken word artist.

“More events like this need to happen,” Amir told Patch. “More concrete things need to happen where we’re able to see, understand each other.”

Amir added that fundamental racial issues that existed when Jamestown was established in 1607 still exist today.

“The solution back then is still true now,” Amir said. “The more that people can come together and have that common understanding, see each other, see what the problems are, come up with concrete strategies to address those problems and address them as a collective because power is always in the people — then we can be successful.”

Visit https://www.awocenter.org/festival for more information about the festival.