Friday is Juneteenth and Tallahassee organizations and businesses are ready to celebrate.
More than 100 Black-owned vendors and dozens of food trucks are slated for the Juneteenth Empowerment festival this weekend at Cascades Park. Last year, more than 2,500 people attended the event.
Organizer Alfred Williams says he hopes to see that number grow.
“I expect in the next five to 10 years that we'll be celebrating Juneteenth as we celebrate July 4,” Williams says. “We already know naturally it's going to be celebrated, but we kind of want to make sure that in every small city, every town across America, that we can actually come together for one unified day.”
During the festival, vendors are selling goods, services, and, they hope, establishing returning customers who will continue to shop with them throughout the year. Antonio Jefferson is President of the Big Bend Minority Chamber of Commerce. He says the holiday has a positive impact on Black-owned businesses.
“It has grown over time, and we're excited about that growth, because some of these businesses, while they may not be on Main Street, they're still here in our community,”
Jefferson says. “Knowledge of their existence can maybe [stop] somebody from shopping online at Amazon or some other online company to provide those same goods and services, and I think that awareness only makes our local economy even stronger”
Jefferson says Juneteenth celebrations, like the festival at Cascades, provide a valuable opportunity to “spotlight” the Black business community.
“To have a portion of our community in one place and to see how we're impacting not only our local economy with financial transactions, but what our individual entrepreneurs and business owners are doing in our community is always a great reminder of how diverse our community is and the contributions that African American businesses make,” Jefferson says.
Tallahassee regularly ranks among the top metro areas for Black-owned businesses. A 2026 Lending Tree report shows 7.6% of Tallahassee’s businesses are Black-owned, outpacing the national average.
Juneteenth officially became a federal holiday in 2021 when the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act was signed into law. It marks the day in 1865 when the Emancipation Proclamation was read in Texas, effectively announcing the end of slavery in the United States.
