Thousands of people turned San Francisco’s Fillmore district into an eight-block-long expression of Black joy and resilience Saturday with Juneteenth celebrations that stretched from morning to evening.
Sometimes called the country’s “second independence day,” June 19th marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been emancipated two years before. In 2021, the date was recognized as a federal holiday, Juneteenth National Independence Day.
Saturday’s celebrations kicked off in front of the Fillmore Heritage Center, a long-shuttered building that many see as a symbol of San Francisco’s divestment from the historically Black neighborhood. City officials announced last month that the Heritage Center will reopen for community use until December, but its future beyond then remains uncertain.
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