Reflections on 22nd FOLWCC Juneteenth CELEBRATION

at outdoor Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center on 6/19/21

by Manzoor Cheema, Community Activist/ FOLWCC Supporter and Volunteer

The Black community members and partners have celebrated Juneteenth as a festive, colorful, and historic event celebrating the abolition of slavery in the USA since June 19, 1865! This year's victorious Juneteenth 2021 was a special event since it received the US federal approval of a paid national holiday, a recognition that was 156 years late by the white supremacist ruling elite. This federal bi-partisan recognition came also as the result of a growing wave of the largest Black-led multi-racial, diverse and international demonstrations ever post Brother George Floyd's tragic murder by the police. Moreover, it was possible only because of dedicated grassroots organizing by Black organizations throughout the USA over many years.

North Carolina-based Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center (FOLWCC) issued a powerful statement on Juneteenth 2021 to describe the struggle of establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday. However, the struggle for ending racial and economic injustice is far from over, the statement emphasized. This struggle needs to continue in the form of grassroots organizing for a " broader and deeper "social justice movement-building effort. The statement that was read together and discussed continued that "Juneteenth 2021 is the time for us to not only celebrate "Black Freedom Day," but reflect, read, study, and learn more on our people's struggle for" true LIBERATION" from white supremacy and all capitalist oppression & exploitation in our workplaces, communities, and this society!" To drive this point to their political base and partners, the Fruit of Labor WCC volunteer team organized a Fish Fry / cook-out along with a community political discussion and film screening on June 19, 2021. Approximately 50-60 organizers, activists, and community members from diverse backgrounds and cities/towns in NC attended the celebration and social justice political event.

Founded by BWFJ's FRUIT OF LABOR SINGING ENSEMBLE (FOL), Black workers and political artists on Juneteenth 1999, the Fruit of Labor World Culture Center/FOLWCC has emerged as a space for celebrating the long " Black Radical Tradition" and building a peoples' movement against racism, inequality, wars, and all other oppressions. This long-term organizing work is evident in the form of FOLWCC using visual art, music, film, song, forums, book club study groups, poetry as well as African /Black /Working Class Cultural Holidays intertwined with regular political discussions and organizing sessions at Fruit of Labor WCC. The center has been used for the 1990's/2006 Raleigh Sanitation Worker Strike organizing meetings, people's assembly convenings, Kwanza celebrations, youth Hip Hop for Justice performances/political programs and many political discussions, Cuba solidarity events, African Liberation Day, Malcolm X/Ella Baker/ML King/Rosa Parks Birthday celebrations and similar political, social, and cultural events. Tenant groups, neighborhood organizations, working-class organizations, and unions frequently use it as a special event and meeting place.

This covid safe outdoors FOL WCC Juneteenth 2021 was a powerful event with great food and music that included political discussion on the "call to action" statement issued by Fruit of Labor World Cultural Center all-volunteer staff team. This engaging discussion was led by Angaza Sababu Laughinghouse and others. After reviewing a brief film" The Hate that Hate Produced", his organizer activist son, Angaza Samora Laughinghouse, led an in-depth additional discussion on de-funding Raleigh police and refunding people's needs in the City of Raleigh. Letha Muhammad and Fernando Martinez from the Education Justice Alliance led a discussion and film screening on ending the school-to-prison pipeline.

There is and continues to be a growing hunger for such political education and a desire for grassroots organizing within the broader working class and social justice community in the Triangle Area of North Carolina and beyond. Participants from a wide range of organizations who attended the Juneteenth 2021 event at FOL WCC, including EJA (Education Justice Alliance), Muslims for Social Justice, ACLU - NC, Fayetteville PACT (Police Accountability Community Taskforce), CAR (Coalition Against Racism, Greenville, NC), Triangle DSA (Democratic Socialists of America), PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation) - Durham, members, neighborhood tenant organizers of Smash Racism Raleigh, UE Union Local 150 SURJ-Triangle,

BWFJ, and others participants who were unaffiliated with an organization, all left this celebration event with a commitment to building a stronger movement for social justice in their workplace and neighborhood. The Juneteenth 2021 event at Fruit of Labor WCC will hopefully serve as the start of a new wave of more active organizing campaigns in Raleigh and the broader Triangle area of North Carolina. We all agreed that our collective mission was to work together to change the present balance of power from them to the US by organizing to abolish racial, economic, and all other forms of oppression and exploitation!

CELEBRATE EVERY JUNETEENTH AS AN ONGOING STRUGGLE FOR OUR COMPLETE and TRUE LIBERATION!

TOGETHER WE WILL WIN!