George Floyd’s murder and Trump in Tulsa indelibly marked this celebration

The Juneteenth celebrations that took place in North and South Minneapolis and St. Paul last Friday, June 19 were similar to past years’ observances, but this year they took on a more pressing tone as the issue of  police violence in the wake of George Floyd’s death loomed over the community.

The celebration included free food, poetry, music, dancing (the electric slide), speeches, and even a march down Broadway Avenue demanding prosecution of the police who killed George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

This year’s celebration was marred a bit by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement that he would hold a rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 19.

For many, Trump’s determination to hold the event on a significant weekend of Black celebration symbolizes his and many of his followers’ animosity towards the growing  movement to end police violence and racial injustice in this country.

The destruction and unrest in Greenwood in 1921 and the riots that broke out across the country during The Red Summer of 1919 mirror the looting and burning of multiple minority-owned businesses by White Supremacists and other White agents of mayhem during the first three days of protests following George Floyd’s murder.