Saratoga Dreamers presents inaugural Suffolk Juneteenth Festival
Published 9:00 am Wednesday, June 25, 2025
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Suffolk’s inaugural Juneteenth Festival was held on Saturday, June 21 at the Downtown Festival Park. Presented by Saratoga Dreamers, the festival is a way to bring national Juneteenth celebrations to Suffolk.
The festival included live music performances, activities for kids, various vendors and nonprofit organizations, and readings of the Emancipation Proclamation, Juneteenth Proclamation, and the Black National Anthem.
Saratoga Dreamers President Roshawn Holland said the holiday is “near and dear” to his heart and he searched for it on the calendar before it became a federal holiday.
“When I started discussing it with the city, I was coming in like, ‘Hey, we already love the holiday, you know, and we’d like to make it as big and as grand as we possibly can, if we can,’” he said.
He said working with the City to put on the event was “flawless,” and he gave special thanks to the Parks and Recreation department and Economic Development.
Various City officials were in attendance, including Director of Economic Development Janet Days, Mayor Michael Duman, and members of the City Council. Holland said this helps add validity to the event and makes people trust that it will become an annual event.
“It shows that we’re [not] just doing a Juneteenth Festival right out of the blue,” he said. “It’s like, it was well thought of. City officials were thought of, and that makes it so much easier to present it to the public in a way that they [know] we’re going to see this again next year.”
While Suffolk has never had a Juneteenth Festival, Holland did recognize some Juneteenth events hosted by the Suffolk Public Libraries and the Nansemond-Suffolk NAACP.
Overall, both Holland and Days said they were pleased with how the event turned out and they are looking forward to making it an annual celebration. The biggest challenge was the weather.
In the future, Holland said he might push back the festival start time to try and work better with the hot temperatures. He also mentioned having more tents set up to offer some shade.
Holland added that having a national musician perform would be great as well. Days said from the City’s perspective, she would love to see more local businesses and vendors selling their products.
While Days said the attendance was high, she found out many people didn’t know what was going on and were drawn out because they could hear the music from their houses.
It was important to Holland that the event be both educational and fun. He wanted to incorporate cultural and historical aspects, which is why he asked members of the NAACP to present pieces of Juneteenth written history.
He said that one of the NAACP members was a teacher Holland had in high school, which shows the generational impact this event can have.
“So we wanted to let the crowd know it’s not just … playing music, you know, like you’re going to learn something about the history of Juneteenth, about the culture, why Juneteenth is a holiday, and other things along those lines,” he said.
