As Juneteenth celebrations unfold across the country this week, many Black Miamians are reflecting on the holiday’s deeper meaning amid political backlash, cultural erasure and vandalism, including the recent defacing of a beloved mural at Dorsey Park in Overtown.
For local muralist Addonis Parker, Juneteenth represents more than a date in history; it’s liberation long deferred.
“That's actually our Fourth of July,” he said. “It's important. It goes back centuries because my forefathers never saw it. But some of them believed it could happen. They died not seeing freedom and liberation.”
Terrance Cribbs-Lorrant, executive director of the City of Miami Black Police Precinct & Courthouse Museum, said Juneteenth has always been personal to him.
“It was either somebody was hosting some type of festival at their home or we were going to the park,” he said. “I've always known that it was that point of freedom. It typically culminated for me with some type of faith ceremony of response to ancestors.”
For Overtown youth and HBCU student Jasmine Williams, it’s a reminder of resilience.
“Even though there have been so many difficulties upon me and my ancestors’ time of being here, we’ve still overcome and found a connection.”
Juneteenth, observed every June 19, marks the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform more than 250,000 enslaved people of their freedom — over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. Now in its 160th year and fourth as a federal holiday, the significance of Juneteenth has only grown in 2025, as diversity, equity and inclusion policies are rolled back, cultural history is restricted in schools, and Black identity faces renewed erasure.
Black history’s erasure
Earlier this year, President Donald Trump criticized the National Museum of African American History and Culture, claiming it supports “improper ideology.” On March 27, he signed an executive order to cut funding for the museum and other institutions he accused of “ideological indoctrination.”
At least 18 states, including Florida, have moved to curtail the teaching of African American history. AP African American Studies courses have been banned in Florida and South Carolina. Several states have enacted bans on "Critical Race Theory" and any teaching that might evoke student "guilt."
According to a 2024 PEN America report, 44% of books banned in schools feature people or characters of color.
Miami historian Dr. Marvin Dunn sees today’s restrictions as a dangerous “minimizing of the suffering, minimizing the violence.”
“It is a denial of reality,” he said. “If we allow the government and whoever is there to remove Black history, the effect would be that Black children think they're white. That’s the whole point about this erasure of our history, to have Black people not feel particularly independent or proud.”
Still, he views Juneteenth more critically.
“My feeling is that Juneteenth changed nothing for the formerly enslaved people,” he said. “The day after Juneteenth, they were right back in the cotton fields like they were the day before. Even though they were told, ‘You are free,’ what were they going to do? Where were they going to go?”
To Dunn, true freedom is defined by opportunity.
“Freedom means having options in your life in terms of where you can take your life, in terms of your work, in terms of what you choose to do. Black people were not freed by Juneteenth. They were not freed by the Emancipation Proclamation,” he said.
This March, Dunn, a former naval officer-turned-author, launched the “Black History Learning Tree” just outside FIU’s Steven and Dorothea Green Library, reviving an African tradition of storytelling to pass down history.
“In slavery, after the working day was over, Black men gathered around a tree and talked. That is how our history was passed on — under a tree, informally, through stories,” Dunn said. “FIU needs a Black History Learning Tree. They won't let us teach it inside the classrooms. We'll teach it outside under this tree.”
There, he shares stories often absent from curricula — like the 1980 Miami race riots or Anna Kingsley’s journey as an early free Black woman and landowner — all while distributing banned books and inviting guest speakers.
“Protect what remains”
As attacks on Black history trickle down from the national and state level, one incident much closer to home had the local community recently reeling. This year, Juneteenth comes just weeks after racist graffitidefaced a mural honoring Black history at Dorsey Park in Overtown.
To longtime resident and advocate Nicole Crooks, the act was only one visible form of many ongoing harms.
“In Overtown, so much of our history, people and culture is being erased,” Crooks said. “The people are being removed from our own narrative. In some instances the brutality is visible, like at Dorsey Park. Yet, throughout our community, it's happening in more insidious ways, through policy, contracts, development, etcetera. It's all violent, but with the latter, it's legal, just like slavery was once legal. Yet that never made it any less brutal.”
Crooks said Juneteenth reminds us that declarations of freedom mean little without truth, transparency and reconciliation.
“When we share our own narratives, we own our own destiny, and our humanity is honored. That's why the historic designation for Dorsey Park is so important to us. We know that we must protect what remains,” she said.
Williams also shared sentiments about the vandalism in Overtown.
“It’s really disappointing and disheartening, but I guess it just shows you the direction that our world is going.”
City of Miami officials, working with community activists and Miami Marlins majority-owner Bruce Sherman, have since announced that they will be restoring the murals celebrating Jackie Robinson and other Black baseball legends.
Art as resistance
To Parker, art is a form of testimony. On June 13, he launched his exhibition “Still We Rise” at the ARC in Opa-locka with Ten North Group, presented by OneUnited Bank and inspired by Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise.” The exhibition celebrates Black creativity, endurance and faith.
One standout piece, Submit to God, features a woman floating in water, sunglasses over her eyes and microphone in hand.
“She’s actually submitting herself to God,” Parker explained. “The microphone in her right hand, that’s her voice, the body is the people, the nation. It’s the nation of righteousness, and the nation of righteousness — it comes in all colors.”
Parker said the torn American flag draped around her hand represents “America torn apart, period,” while her submerged body evokes themes of baptism, transformation and rebirth.
“I wanted people to see color,” he said. “We’re all different colors, different backgrounds, different cultures. But if you put it together and you put it in a painting, it becomes a masterpiece.”
For Parker, his work is a form of activism.
“I was an activist when I was in high school. I’m painting the same thing — liberation, people, power to people, all that,” Parker said. “I'm not ashamed of who I am or my message. I just so happen to have a Black face. My message would still be the same if I were another color.”
Cribbs-Lorrant says artists and institutions are frontline defenders of truth. As the head of his museum, he emphasized the importance of sharing its purpose while also engaging in current conversations.
“Art in all genres, in all capacities, has always been a resounding board for what has been — a history time capsule,” he said. “If anything, the artists are the ones that need to take the lead. Be in the studios. Be in the streets. Be on your keyboards. Be on your dance. These are the things that are going to help really center and time capsule what we’re experiencing and remind us how we made it over.”
“Whatever it is, I think it’s now that time for us to ensure that we’re unmuting our feelings and savoring the moment to tell history, so that we do only repeat the things that have benefited us,” he added.
In a moment of erasure, Parker remains defiant.
“You can burn every book in the library, but it’s gonna come out of my artwork,” he said. “That hate is designed to wash out the African American influence. They can’t. Because people who love it, like me, we’re the timekeepers.”
This story was produced by The Miami Times, one of the oldest Black-owned newspapers in the country, as part of a content sharing partnership with the WLRN newsroom. Read more at miamitimesonline.com.
