Cedar City Celebrates Juneteenth

Monday the 19th was Juneteenth, the celebration of the official end of slavery in the United States. 

If you’re not entirely sure what Juneteenth is, I’ll leave a link here for you to read more about it. As part of Juneteenth, both Policy Kings and Southern Utah University held events to celebrate and learn more about the day. 

Festivities began at 2 p.m. at Policy Kings with food, music, and a presentation by Derek Livingston. Food was provided by Papa’s Got Jerk of St. George and Mac’s Cheesesteak and Tri-Tip Sandwiches. Policy Kings also has a special beer on tap to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the railroad coming through Cedar City as that celebration is happening this week as well. The beer named “Pullman Porter” is a Munich-style Kolsch named after black men hired to work for the railroads as porters on sleeping cars shortly after the American Civil War. 

At 4 p.m., I headed over to the Southern Utah Museum of Art for the Juneteenth Gallery Talk. The tour led by Dr. Becky Bloom took guests through the exhibit A Dream Deferred: New Perspectives on Black Experience in the Work of Aisha Lehmann and Vitus Shell.  

Dr. Bloom stated that SUMA likes to feature an exhibit each summer that connects in some way to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. This year’s exhibit ties into the Utah Shakespeare Festival's A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. The book begins with the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes that begins “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun”? 

The first display in the exhibition is the Ice Cream Man collection by Vitus Shell.  

On the other wall is a collection put together specifically for this exhibition by Utah native Aisha Lehmann. 

Also part of the exhibition is a section titled "Understanding Privilege". This is an interactive display that allows guests to visualize privilege.

A special thank you to the Southern Utah Museum of Art for letting me tag along on the tour and take pictures for this piece.