The Oneonta Juneteenth Community Empowerment Festival returned to Neahwa Park on Saturday, June 21 for its fifth annual celebration.
Lead organizer Diandra Sangetti-Daniels said the first Juneteenth gathering she organized was in 2020 and was “more of a protest after the death of George Floyd.”
Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer May 25, 2020. Sangetti-Daniels said the protest was a way to process the rage she felt. She said that empowerment became the focus of subsequent Juneteenth gatherings.
“We should not live in our grief,” Sangetti-Daniels said. “I am bi-racial. My mom is Italian and my dad is a Black man.” She carries both of her parents’ last names.
“This is a predominantly white area. There are brown and black people here too,” Sangetti-Daniels said. Bringing people together for a family-friendly event is her focus, she said.
A free community meal is one highlight of the celebration. Hamburgers, salad, and watermelon were served about 3:30 p.m. The event started at 1 p.m. and lasted until 6 p.m. The temperature was close to 90 degrees.
“Black literacy is really important,” Sangetti-Daniels said. “This year, we added a pop-up library in partnership with SUNY Oneonta Library and the Huntington Memorial Library.”
Festival activities included arts and crafts with different mediums of art; a pop-up library with poetry readings; basketball and jump rope with equipment from the Oneonta Boys and Girls Club and Oneonta YMCA, and basketball skills and drills with Graham Wooden.
Sangetti-Daniels was born in Brooklyn and her family moved to Otsego County when she was in the sixth grade. “The housing crisis forced me to move a lot,” she said.
She graduated from Hudson Valley Community College with an associate’s degree. An African American history class there was pivotal in her journey of empowerment, she said. She graduated from SUNY Oneonta in June with a bachelor’s degree in Africana and LatinX studies and another in women and gender studies.
She works with her twin sister, Sierra Sangetti-Daniels, who co-founded the People’s Perception Project. They work with high school seniors in the Capital Region and provide civic engagement projects.
A Black Town Hall, facilitated by Sierra Sangetti-Daniels, provided the opportunity to practice civics skills and focus on housing, education and mental health.
Louis Reyes, interim chief diversity officer at SUNY Delhi, has lived in Oneonta for 20 years. He brought his own children and other children in the community to the event.
“I think this is a wonderful event. I’d like to see it grow,” Reyes said. “The diversity of the people who showed up is a beautiful thing. DEI is really important.”
Alessia Reyes, his daughter, is a third grader at Riverside Elementary school. She enjoyed the crafts tables where she circled words and colored words that stood out to her about black history.
Tyler Miller of Oneonta brought three of his six children to the event. His youngest, Aviyah Miller, 7, liked the arts and crafts tables, too, where she colored a page of Juneteenth facts and quotes.
Natana Miller, 12, said, “Juneteenth is when Texas released the last enslaved people.”
Talyah Miller, 9, also learned about the end of slavery.
Historical facts
The Confederacy was formed in 1861 by southern states that had seceded from the Union.
The American Civil War began April 12, 1861 and ended May 26, 1865.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863 and declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states were free.
The proclamation changed the legal status of more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans in the Confederate states from enslaved to free.
Slavery did not end in 1863. It took two more years of bloodshed for the freedom to be won.
President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865. The assassination occurred only days after Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union forces led by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.
June 19, 1865 marks the day when Union soldiers finally arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War was over and enslaved Black people in Texas were free.