Apex’s Juneteenth Festival returns with an emphasis on healing a once-divided community

Jacques Gilbert still thinks about the night he was sworn into office after being elected Apex’s first African American mayor in 2019 and its impact on the town’s residents.

He said he couldn’t truly understand the tears in their eyes but remembered the stories of his parents and grandparents who lived in the once racially segregated town.

“My dad talks about how he would go to the movie theater downtown and they had to sit at the top,” Gilbert, a third-generation Apex native, said. “There was a barbecue restaurant on Apex Barbecue Road, it’s no longer there, but they talked about how they had to get barbecue from the back. They couldn’t go through the front door.”

Now, 150 years after the incorporation of the town and the end of the Civil War, Apex is in its third year hosting a Juneteenth celebration to honor the contributions of African Americans in Apex and bring the community together.

After its start in 2020, Saturday’s Juneteenth festival on Salem Street is even more significant this year with live music and performances, entertainment, food trucks, and dozens of Black-owned businesses and vendors. There will also be the raising of the Juneteenth flag.

Some of the entertainment includes Ronald “Big Ron” Huff from the Triangle’s hip-hop and R&B radio station K97.5 and a performance by Triangle-based R&B group NiiTO Band.

The festival begins at 11 a.m. on Saturday in downtown Apex at The Depot on Salem Street.

Juneteenth’s meaning and history

TJ Evans, 27, the town’s Juneteenth planning committee chair, said he and a group of other young people had been planning for the event since January.

Evans said the celebration is “more than just a festival for us” as there are three things they hope to accomplish, including educating people about the importance of Juneteenth. He admits he did not learn about the holiday until a few years ago.

“I know that I wasn’t the only one,” Evans said. “We want people to come and enjoy and have a great time, but we also have educational pieces all throughout the event that will help convey what Juneteenth means.”

The Emancipation Proclamation, issued in 1863, would free millions of enslaved Black people, but the freedom was not immediate. For the enslaved in Galveston, Texas, the news did not reach them until two years and a half years later.

Juneteenth, celebrated on June 19, marks the day over 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston to inform the more than 250,000 enslaved people in the state were no longer in bondage.

In 2021, 158 years later, the day became a federal holiday.

Apex was one of the first Triangle towns, alongside Raleigh and Wake County, to designate the day as an official paid holiday for town employees in 2020 and issue a proclamation.

Like other Wake County towns, Apex had days of protests in 2020 during the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the death of Breonna Taylor and the murders of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery.

“We’re going to have law enforcement there (Saturday) to bridge that gap,” Evans said. “The overarching relationship between the African American diaspora and the police hasn’t been the greatest. We want to be able to recreate that relationship and allow folks to come together.”

A new generation of Apex leaders

Gilbert said former Mayor Pro Tem of Apex, Nicole Dozier, first advocated for the celebration of Juneteenth.

“She worked really hard, and there was resistance from community members because they really just didn’t understand what it meant,” Gilbert said.

He said he also credits the young people in the town who have done “99% of the vision for the event,” including his daughter Kalabria Gilbert Lemire, Evans, Brittney Peptis, Asa Clark. Gilbert said the town of Apex staff was also integral in carrying out the vision and organization.

“There’s always going to be a passing of the guard or the time where a new generation is taking leadership roles and creating movements,” Evans said. “It’s really cool to see.”

Clark, 27, a youth pastor at Apex First Baptist Church, said he is excited for the church’s choir to perform at the event, games of pickup basketball, and the food trucks, including Manzie’s Icees, owned by 11-year-old Mario Little, Jr.

“Every year, we’re trying to make (Juneteenth) bigger,” Clark said. “Apex has a lot of festivals, like specifically Peak Fest, it’s huge. ... we’re just trying to get the word out about the Black people being free in Galveston.”

Gilbert said the festival is open to all Apex residents, regardless of race or background. He stresses the importance of the town’s strong community and history.

“Being able to have an event like this in downtown Apex is just really extraordinary,” Gilbert said. “It’s one of those things where (Apex natives) want to believe it and then still acknowledge the history to say, look how far we’ve come.”

Information about parking and road closures on Saturday is available on the town’s website.