A Night at The Seasons Bistro to Kick Off Juneteenth Weekend 2022

It is finally here, Juneteenth Weekend 2022! I have been looking forward to this weekend for many months!

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To start off Juneteenth 2022, we had a couple of Juneteenth Proclamations. The first one was with the Yakima County Commissioners in the Board of Commissioners conference room in the basement of the Yakima County Courthouse. Since I am the current president of the Yakima County NAACP, I was fortunate enough to have been asked to accept the County's Juneteenth Proclamation. That same evening at the Yakima City Council, I was again lucky to accept the City's Juneteenth Proclamation.

Tonight (Friday), I went to a very special music concert at The Bistro inside The Seasons Performance Hall. The Board of Directors at The Seasons had issued a 5-year plan to honor Juneteenth in Yakima by hosting an event with a special invitation to the African American community members at large in Yakima County. Tonight's special guest was Danaë Howe. She is the current Assistant Head of Middle School at Seattle Academy. Danaë is the niece of Yakima's resident African American historian, Ms. Ester Huey. Danaë wowed the crowd with renditions of R&B, soul, and gospel music that she played on the piano. She loved her experience singing and playing the piano for us and she was so excited to play piano accompaniment on the same piano used by the Yakima Symphony Orchestra!

The next Juneteenth Weekend event will be at MLK Jr. Park (S 8th St) on Saturday, June 18th. There will be an hour-long program in the park and then lots of background music and food vendors, so bring your cash! The food vendors will be selling fried fish, corndogs, hamburgers, sweets and treats, as well as water bottles, chips, and other assorted goodies! The program begins at 12 p.m. and the park will be open to all in the community until 4 p.m. Special guest speakers include none other than Ms. Huey, who will give some Juneteenth oral history and various community leaders from the City of Yakima and Yakima County Commissioners will be stopping by to say hello. Rabbi John from Temple Shalom said he is going to stop by to say a few words as well.

I hope to see you there!

Juneteenth Weekend 2022 in Yakima, WA: Danae Howe at The Bistro

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