Oakland Museum holding 1st Juneteenth celebration with cookout featuring local chefs
OAKLAND - The Oakland Museum of California will host its first Juneteenth celebration on Wednesday as the site of Hella Juneteenth "The Cookout" in the afternoon.
The event is organized by local creatives who helped to raise awareness for the holiday and get corporate support for workers to enjoy the day off back in 2020.
"This is the most American of holidays," said Ryan Royster with Last Supper Society and one of the event organizers. "This is us actualizing what we stand for as a country."
Last Supper Society and Hella Creative are producing "The Cookout" together and featuring a variety of local chefs. The event hopes to honor the sense of community this tradition means for Black families.
"This is, you know, our Independence Day and it needs to be celebrated, people need to know about it and all are welcome at this festival, we want everybody to come and enjoy," said Chef Michele McQueen of Town Fare restaurant, located at the museum. "We take pride in our food, we take pride in coming together at picnics and it being a potluck, in everyone contributing to the nourishment of all of your guests."
Each chef will create a dish to make a communal plate for guests to enjoy at the event.
"It's really beautiful to see like where we all come together there's magic and today magic will be happening at the Oakland Museum in the garden," said Selena Davant of Hella Creative.
The event is sold out but people can try to attend by showing up for walk-up admission and try to picnic on their own in the museum's garden, depending on capacity.
"We hang our hat so much on freedom and this is a true depiction of freedom," said Royster.