Local News

The hometown favorites of the step-dance competition at Friday’s Juneteenth festival started by laying down red carpets. Then they slithered provocatively out from under a tablecloth, Destiny’s Child-like, before the cheering audience at Zinn Park.

“Oh my lord.” one woman in the audience exclaimed. “So fine.”

Gamma Phi Chill of Anniston, using folding chairs instead of tra-ditional canes, won the dance com-petition, which was the focal point of a day that drew thousands of visitors, vendors and performers from across the South to what or-ganizers called Alabama’s largest Juneteenth festival.

Juneteenth is the oldest-known celebration commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Texas and announced the end of slavery.

“Freedom is not something to be taken for granted,” said Shelton Moreland, who came from Atlanta to sell herbs and fragrances.

Moreland said he would have liked to see the event follow the more historical focus of some other Juneteenth festivals, where leaders give speeches on the meaning of the holiday.

In Anniston on Saturday, history was secondary to the performances and social familiarity of a festival that brings people back every year.

A lineup of musical acts stretched from morning until night and included a full range: hip-hop, R&B, gospel and soul. Some of the vendors, selling T-shirts, tennis shoes and funnel cakes, said it was their first festival.

“I see a whole lot of people I haven’t seen in a long time,” said Jabora Hall, an Alexandria High School student who said she has attended the festival every year since she was 10.

Early in the afternoon, the music picked up and people began dancing on the park’s main stage. Sitting in the bleachers, Jabora Hall and her 12-year-old friend, Jacquita Dorman, dared each other to dance in front of the crowd.

“I’ll go if you go,” Dorman said.

“No, I’ll go if you go,” Hall replied, laughing and staying firmly in her seat.