Around the Bay Area, Juneteenth events are scheduled to take place and celebrate Black culture, with a focus on music, art and food.<\/p>\n
Spanning Friday to Sunday, the holiday\u2019s festivities will occur across the entire region, with headliner events taking place in Oakland, San Jose and San Francisco.<\/p>\n
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\nFILE: Tim Simmons, formerly the Richmond Police Department\u2019s assistant chief before his promotion to chief this year, wears a Happy Juneteenth flag at the Juneteenth Festival at Nicholl Park in Richmond on Saturday, June 21, 2025. (Autumn DeGrazia\/Bay City News)<\/p>\n
Juneteenth commemorates the day Union troops of the Civil War made their way to Galveston, Texas, declaring the Emancipation Proclamation to free the nation\u2019s final enslaved people. Observed annually on June 19, Juneteenth became an official federal holiday in 2021, signed into law by President Joe Biden.<\/p>\n
However, the Bay Area has celebrated the holiday since long before it was nationally recognized. The region\u2019s oldest continuously running Juneteenth celebration is San Francisco\u2019s Juneteenth Freedom Celebration<\/a>, which had its 80th anniversary on Saturday, when it kicked off regional festivities.<\/p>\n Taking place in the Fillmore District, the event filled eight city blocks with thousands of people, featuring free carnival rides and music concerts.<\/p>\n This weekend, the celebrations will continue, with major parades and festivals set to be hosted in Oakland, Antioch, Vallejo, San Francisco, Berkeley, San Jose and Palo Alto.<\/p>\n All festivals will place a primary focus on promoting Black culture and entrepreneurship, featuring local Black artists and food vendors.<\/p>\n Oakland, San Jose events in spotlight Friday<\/p>\n On Friday, Downtown Oakland\u2019s Hella Juneteenth Festival<\/a> and San Jose\u2019s Juneteenth Community Celebration<\/a> will center around music.<\/p>\n The Oakland event will be headlined by East Oakland native rapper and producer Ovrkast, who produced two tracks for Drake\u2019s album \u201cFor All The Dogs Scary Hours Edition in 2023\u201d. Pope Flynn, the Ghanaian-born master percussionist and vocalist for the Sweet Talks band, will lead a drumming workshop in San Jose.<\/p>\n Other events, such as Juneteenth! at the Museum<\/a> at the Oakland Museum of California on Friday, will highlight Black artists.<\/p>\n Though the OMCA event will also include live music, the event\u2019s main attraction is the museum\u2019s special African-American exhibition \u201cMildred Howard: Poetics of Memory<\/a>,\u201d which links personal memory to broader history, showcasing the work of Bay Area artist Mildred Howard.<\/p>\n Lake Merritt road closures and parking restrictions in effect on Friday<\/p>\n The City of Oakland said that on\u00a0Friday, June 19\u00a0from\u00a06\u00a0a.m. until\u00a08\u00a0p.m., the following\u00a0road restrictions\u00a0will be in effect:\u00a0<\/p>\n Lakeshore Avenue\u00a0<\/p>\n Closed between MacArthur Blvd\u00a0and East 18th St.\u00a0<\/p>\n No parking will be\u00a0permitted\u00a0<\/p>\n The following streets will be closed at Lakeshore Ave: Beacon St, Boden Way, Brooklyn Ave, Wayne Ave, Hanover Ave, and the Lakeshore Ave\u00a0cul-de-sac.\u00a0<\/p>\n El Embarcadero\u2014Closed.\u00a0<\/p>\n Grand Avenue\u00a0<\/p>\n Closed between MacArthur Boulevard and Euclid Ave.\u00a0<\/p>\n The following streets will be closed at Grand Ave: Perkins St,\u00a0Ellita Ave, Staten Ave, and Bellevue Ave.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bellevue will be restricted to residents only from Perkins\u00a0St\u00a0to Grand Ave, and visitors to Children\u2019s Fairyland. These restrictions will improve traffic safety and allow for greater access for park visitors, bicyclists, and pedestrians around this narrow section of Lake Merritt. They will also allow for emergency vehicle access when needed.\u00a0<\/p>\n MacArthur Boulevard\u00a0<\/p>\n The following streets will be closed at MacArthur Blvd.: Grand Ave,\u00a0Lakeshore Ave, and Beacon St.\u00a0<\/p>\n The City said the temporary street closures are necessary to\u00a0ensure\u00a0emergency services\u00a0can be delivered\u00a0to people at or around the Lake as swiftly as possible\u00a0and that participants can access public transit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Residents\u00a0who live\u00a0along affected streets will be allowed vehicle access through the road closures. Emergency vehicles, AC Transit buses\u00a0and\u00a0East Bay Paratransit\u00a0vehicles will also be allowed access.\u00a0Businesses coordinating deliveries along affected streets are advised to plan accordingly.\u00a0<\/p>\n Traffic barriers allowing pedestrian access to the Lake will be placed around Lake Merritt.\u00a0Bicycles will be allowed through these barriers.\u00a0The\u00a0City\u00a0is not planning to place fencing around the Lake.\u00a0<\/p>\n Juneteenth is a parking meter holiday; the Lake Park Parking Lot under\u00a0I-580 has approximately 150 spaces, which on non-holiday weekdays are\u00a0often largely\u00a0available.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0City\u00a0encourages those who\u00a0are able to\u00a0use AC Transit, BART, ride share, and\/or bike share, to access Lake Merritt.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n City\u00a0Code Enforcement and OPD\u2019s Alcoholic Beverage Action Team (ABAT) will be on site at Lake Merritt\u00a0on\u00a0Friday to address illegal vending.\u00a0<\/p>\n City of Oakland press release on June 16, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n Other Bay Area events<\/p>\n Many of the Bay Area\u2019s Juneteenth events are organized by community-led nonprofits and cultural organizations, though a few are city-sponsored, such as Antioch\u2019s Juneteenth: A Freedom Celebration<\/a> on Friday and East Palo Alto\u2019s Welcome Black Weekend<\/a>, which takes place Friday through Sunday.<\/p>\n Even in the absence of a city-sponsored community event, most Bay Area city councils are working to recognize the holiday with gestures of Black solidarity. At Hayward City Hall, the city will raise the Pan African flags, while in Pleasant Hill, the City Council\u2019s Diversity Commission will offer public remarks amidst its Juneteenth Celebration.<\/p>\n The post Bay Area Juneteenth celebrations to honor Black culture through music, art and food<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around the Bay Area, Juneteenth events are scheduled to take place and celebrate Black culture, with a focus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-363488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/LNM-20260616-JUNETEENTHPREVIEW-03.jpg\")
FILE: Children take a ride down a giant slide during Juneteenth celebrations at Williamson Ranch Park in Antioch on June 19, 2022. (Harika Maddala\/Bay City News\/CatchLight Local)<\/p>\n