Latest news with #HowardUniversity
Associated Press
11 hours ago
- Business
- Associated Press
Howard University & PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship Convenes Entrepreneurs, Investors and HBCU Leaders for Empowerment Summit
Originally published by Howard University By Caleb Robinson WASHINGTON, June 19, 2025 /3BL/ - Howard University & PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship will host the 2025 HBCU Entrepreneurship Empowerment Summit from June 19 to 21, 2025, at the Marriott Marquis in Washington. Now in its third year, the national summit brings together HBCU students and alumni, business owners, investors, faculty and ecosystem builders for three days of expert-led programming, curated networkingand community-driven innovation. 'PNC applauds the work that's been taking place at the Center over the past several years, and the national summit stands out as some of its most impactful programming,' said Richard K. Bynum, chief corporate responsibility officer for PNC. 'Like all of the Center's resources, the summit is open to everyone with an entrepreneurial mindset and an interest in seizing the opportunity to learn, grow and scale their businessventures.' Event highlights include the Mecca Marketplace, a pop-up for local entrepreneurs to showcase and sell their products, and Resource Fair, which will feature funding opportunities and business tools for attendees. The Future Innovators Brunch will offer targeted conversations on technology, AI, business development and retail solutions. Additionally, the HBCU Empower Awards will celebrate student and faculty innovators from across the country. 'This summit reflects our commitment to supporting entrepreneurs with the tools, insights and connections they need to thrive. From student innovators and faculty researchers to experienced founders and ecosystem builders, this is a space where ideas grow, networks expand and meaningful impact begins,' said Johnny Graham, Ph.D., interim national executive director of the Howard University & PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship and marketing professor at the Howard University School of Business. Attendees will hear from business experts and entrepreneurs, including Howard University alumnus Nicholas M. Perkins, president and CEO of Perkins Management Services Company and Fuddruckers; Cornell McBride Jr., president of Design Essentials; Angel Gregorio, founder and CEO of The Spice Suite, Something Suite and Black and Forth; and Jabari Johnson, CEO of COLORS Worldwide Inc. and R&B ONLY. Programming tracks cover business growth strategies, access to capital and ecosystem development through education, policy and partnerships. For more information and the full conference agenda, visit ### About Howard University & PNC National Center for EntrepreneurshipThe Howard University & PNC National Center for Entrepreneurship is a national consortium & hub focused on enhancing entrepreneurship education at Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCUs) and empowering entrepreneurs around the country. The National Center for Entrepreneurship enhances the success and growth of businesses through providing programming, capital, curriculum, research, and other resources in collaboration with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and their surrounding communities. About Howard University Howard University, established in 1867, is a leading private research university based in Washington, D.C. Howard's 14 schools and colleges offer 140 undergraduate, graduate, and professional degree programs and lead the nation in awarding doctoral degrees to African American students. The top-ranked historically Black college or university according to Forbes, Howard is the only HBCU ranked among U.S. News & World Report's Top 100 National Universities and the only HBCU classified as an R1 research institution, indicating the highest level of research spending and doctoral production. Renowned for its esteemed faculty, high achieving students, and commitment to excellence, leadership, truth and service, Howard produces distinguished alumni across all sectors, including the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice and the first woman U.S. vice president; Schwarzman, Marshall, Rhodes, and Truman Scholars; prestigious fellows; and over 165 Fulbright recipients. Learn more at . Media Contacts: Carol Wilkerson; (202) 288-7071; ( [email protected] and [email protected] Angie Carducci; (412) 762-9186; [email protected] Airen Washington; (202) 209-6319; [email protected] Visit 3BL Media to see more multimedia and stories from PNC Financial Services Group
Yahoo
a day ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
How cities are scaling back Juneteenth celebrations after Trump-era DEI rollbacks
Despite Juneteenth's status as a federal holiday, celebrations across the country are being scaled back or canceled. Organizers say safety issues along with mounting resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are making it harder to hold events – raising concerns that political backlash is threatening the commemoration of Black freedom at a time when experts say it is most needed. 'What we're seeing – businesses pulling back and universities canceling programs in response to attacks on DEI – shows that many institutions and corporations were never truly committed to diversity and inclusion,' said LaTasha Levy, a professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, DC. 'We're not even being honest about what DEI really stands for.' Juneteenth is the oldest regular US celebration of the end of slavery. It commemorates June 19, 1865 – the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free - more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. President Donald Trump tried to take credit for making Juneteenth 'very famous,' saying during his first term in 2020 that, 'nobody had ever heard of it.' His comments came while the nation was reeling from ongoing civil unrest after George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. But Juneteenth didn't become an official holiday until 2021, under President Joe Biden's administration – the first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Experts say this happened in part due to a racial reckoning - with the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd in the same year as the global Covid-19 pandemic. Since his reelection, Trump has made the elimination of DEI programs a centerpiece of his administration, cracking down on diversity efforts in the federal government with a series of executive orders. In January, the Defense Department's intelligence agency paused observances of cultural or historical annual events – like Juneteenth – in response to Trump's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace, the Associated Press reported. In a statement to CNN earlier this month, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the agency is 'proud of our warriors and their history,' but will focus 'on the character of their service instead of their immutable characteristics.' 'Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,' Parnell added. The impacts of the federal rollback of DEI practices have begun to trickle down to local communities. Several areas across the country have canceled or scaled back celebrations for the holiday, citing safety concerns, mixed feedback from the community and other issues. Reggie Johnson, president of the NAACP Metuchen Edison Piscataway Area Branch in New Jersey, said he had to move his organization's annual Juneteenth celebration to a smaller location after staff at the federal site where it was previously held expressed uncertainty about hosting it. 'The contractors misinterpreted our event as a DEI initiative,' Johnson said. 'They didn't want to risk having it and losing it because of Trump's interpretation of Juneteenth.' Five days later, Johnson said, federal staff called back to say the event would be allowed. But by then, he had already secured another space. A museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia, had to scale back its Juneteenth celebration because it could no longer access its National Endowment for the Arts funding. 'Our Juneteenth Grant was officially retracted on April 29th-well after planning begun for this year's festivities,' the president and CEO of the Fredericksburg Area Museum, Sam McKelvey, told CNN in an emailed statement this week. 'We are still holding a much smaller event with the museum in the red but the community has stepped up for us and allowed us to make it still happen.' While eliminating a federal holiday would require an act of Congress, experts warn that any dilution of the holiday celebration is cause for concern. 'Most Americans don't have a kind of deep knowledge of Juneteenth, but even that, what they know, will disappear,' Robert Bland, assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Tennessee, said. Blythewood, South Carolina, Mayor Sloan J. Griffin III was elected in 2023 to a town of about 4,772 people – being only the second Black person to do so. This year, he was the only member of the town council to vote in favor of holding Juneteenth and Fourth of July events. In May, the town's Facebook page said the cancelations were 'due to safety concerns,' something that the mayor attributed to unprecedented population growth. Blythewood recently had two incidents where teenagers were involved in fights, which led to an event being canceled. Griffin also noted that there was a recent shooting around 2 a.m., involving minors who were out after prom. Still, Griffin said he knows how important the celebration of Juneteenth is and added that with his background in public safety he's used to coming up with multiple solutions to tackle a problem. South Carolina is a state with a complex history when it comes to race. It's home to Charleston, one of the nation's top travel destinations, but also a city plagued by its sordid past built on the unpaid labor of African men and women who were kidnapped, beaten, raped and enslaved. The state was the site of one of the nation's most racially motivated attacks in recent history and was among the last to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. 'I was the one that really started the Juneteenth piece here,' the mayor said, noting he was a council member at the time and supported commemorating the holiday. 'When we talk about Juneteenth in the history of the heritage, it is important that we never we never forget the past … but we also embrace the future and regenerate that burning desire that our parents and grandparents had in the 60s, to change things.' A former 2nd Ward alderman for the city of Plano, Illinois – the first city in the state to adopt Juneteenth as a holiday – agrees. 'I really think that it's an opportunity for us to tell our story, without being interrupted,' Jamal Williams said. 'We are now in 2025 and we're still talking about first, the first African American to do this … You know, we've been free for a long time.' Williams says he was the first Black member of the city's council. His last day serving as an alderman was last month. For years, he's helped organize Juneteenth events in the Plano community, including one in 2022 that drew about 1,100 people. That number dropped to less than half – roughly 500 people – in 2024, according to Williams. This year the former alderman decided not to hold an event in Plano after a lack of sponsors looking to participate – though he is supporting an event in nearby Yorkville, a few miles away. 'I got labeled as someone that only wanted to support the Black community, not necessarily the people in Ward 2, which I was elected to do,' Williams said. Another Juneteenth-related event across state lines was also canceled, as Indy Juneteenth in Indianapolis announced it would pause its parade but still hold several events to observe the holiday. The event's executive director said he tried to explore other options to keep the parade going. 'We were ultimately denied by public safety officials due to reported concerns from nearby residents, despite similar events taking place in that area in the past,' Executive Director James Webb told CNN. An organization that typically hosts a Juneteenth event at a local park in Bend, Oregon, said it was postponing this year's celebration – citing growing racial tensions and threats. And in Denver, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival was scaled back to a single-day event after several major sponsors either pulled out or reduced their contributions this year. Norman Harris, the festival's lead organizer, said the loss of support was abrupt and came without a clear explanation. Educators caution against conflating DEI with historical remembrances of holidays like Juneteenth. 'DEI efforts and historical remembrance celebrations are two totally different things,' inclusive leadership educator and scholar Toby S. Jenkins said. 'Fourth of July is not DEI, even though it celebrates freedom from political oppression. Memorial Day isn't DEI, even though it honors a protected population, our veterans.' Still, some say the scaling back and cancelations of these events paints a picture of how much work still needs to be done. 'I think it really affirms what we've already known. There are too many entities in our country who are not serious about freedom and liberation,' Levy said. 'I would really just hope that Black people, wherever they are, use it as an opportunity to connect, to build, to plan, for our future like we've always had to do, and to return to those traditions and strategies and wisdom of our ancestors of what to do in these moments of repression and hate,' Levy added. CNN's Nicquel Terry Ellis and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.
The Hindu
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Sekhar Kammula interview: Nagarjuna and Dhanush stepped into ‘Kuberaa' with complete trust
It has been a race to the finish for director Sekhar Kammula and his team as they wrap post-production on Kuberaa, set to release on June 20. When we meet him at the Asian Cinemas production house in Hyderabad, Sekhar appears relieved but visibly worn out. The film, starring Nagarjuna Akkineni, Dhanush, Rashmika Mandanna and Jim Sarbh, is his most ambitious yet, with a budget exceeding ₹100 crore. Kuberaa also marks a personal milestone — 25 years since Sekhar's debut with Dollar Dreams (2000), which won the National Award for Best First Film of a Director. When asked what he believes has kept him relevant all these years, he smiles: 'I'm just happy that I am. It's easy for a writer-director to get carried away. I stay connected with people and don't treat cinema only as business. It's an art form rooted in social awareness and sensitivity. I must also credit my direction team and co-writer Chaitanya Pingali, who help keep me grounded.' Sekhar has always placed the story above the director, and says Kuberaa marks a deliberate departure from his usual romantic and family dramas. 'It's not a departure from who I am or my filmmaking style, just the canvas and story are larger,' he says. The film, he explains, is a socio-political thriller where a billionaire capitalist (Jim Sarbh) and a beggar (Dhanush) are brought into conflict through a middle-class man (Nagarjuna). 'It's a story about how survival instincts and selfish motives clash across three economic strata.' The film begins as a thriller before delving into the emotional arcs of its characters. 'The challenge was to make the emotional undercurrent as compelling as the thriller narrative. This kind of conflict is rare in Indian cinema,' says Sekhar. 'I'm proud of the film, but also a bit anxious, it could go either way. I just hope it makes audiences go 'wow'.' Fifteen years after his political drama Leader, Kuberaa draws once again from Sekhar's observations of society. 'I can't pinpoint exactly when this story began, but it evolved as we explored the characters,' he says. He recalls that even his previous film, Love Story, which tackled caste and childhood trauma, went through several drafts. Kuberaa too was complex to write, balancing multiple narratives. He credits co-writer Chaitanya Pingali with bringing in deeper empathy for the marginalised: 'Our belief systems are what distinguish us as writers. People call me empathetic, but she is more so, especially towards the oppressed. That comes through in the film.' Sekhar's storytelling is firmly rooted in the real world. Unlike many of his peers, he never moved to the industry hub of Film Nagar, choosing instead to remain in Secunderabad. His instincts were shaped by his time at Howard University, USA, where a professor once advised him to look to life, not just films, for inspiration. 'I didn't plan it this way, it's just how I am,' he reflects. In a climate dominated by high-octane action entertainers, Sekhar remains steadfast in his preference for realism. 'I enjoy watching those films. But when I tell stories, I want them to stay grounded. I don't follow trends. For me, the creative struggle to build something original is exhilarating.' Kuberaa is also his first time working with big stars, and he praises their collaborative spirit. 'Nag came in saying, 'I trust you, and I'll listen to you'. Dhanush was equally receptive. They brought the depth their characters needed.' Rashmika Mandanna impressed him with her expressive performance: 'She speaks through her eyes, is chirpy, and can hold her own in commercial cinema.' He also marvelled at Jim Sarbh's command of Telugu: 'He aced his lines. That takes real effort.' Production designer Thota Tharani, who worked with Sekhar's on Leader, returned for Kuberaa despite the director's initial hesitation to approach him due to age. 'When I need scale, he's my first choice. We shot guerilla-style in real locations and built sets in Mumbai. In some scenes, you can't tell the difference on screen.' Cinematographer Niketh Bommi was brought on board as Sekhar's longtime collaborator Vijay C Kumar was unwell. 'Niketh brought a young, dynamic energy. We vibed well.' Composer Devi Sri Prasad wasn't part of the original plan. 'Initially we needed just a score and one song. But DSP gave us catchy, commercially viable music as the scope evolved.' At 182 minutes, the film's runtime has raised eyebrows. But Sekhar is unfazed. 'This length was essential to tell such a layered story. I can't cut it down — it's all interlinked.' Looking back, one of his earliest films, Anand, was also a three-hour film. As we wrap up, he offers a final thought: 'We've been sincere in making something meaningful. I just hope people connect with it.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
How cities are scaling back Juneteenth celebrations after Trump-era DEI rollbacks
Diversity and equity Donald Trump Race & ethnicityFacebookTweetLink Follow Despite Juneteenth's status as a federal holiday, celebrations across the country are being scaled back or canceled. Organizers say safety issues along with mounting resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are making it harder to hold events – raising concerns that political backlash is threatening the commemoration of Black freedom at a time when experts say it is most needed. 'What we're seeing – businesses pulling back and universities canceling programs in response to attacks on DEI – shows that many institutions and corporations were never truly committed to diversity and inclusion,' said LaTasha Levy, a professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, DC. 'We're not even being honest about what DEI really stands for.' Juneteenth is the oldest regular US celebration of the end of slavery. It commemorates June 19, 1865 – the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free - more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. President Donald Trump tried to take credit for making Juneteenth 'very famous,' saying during his first term in 2020 that, 'nobody had ever heard of it.' His comments came while the nation was reeling from ongoing civil unrest after George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. But Juneteenth didn't become an official holiday until 2021, under President Joe Biden's administration – the first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Experts say this happened in part due to a racial pandemic - with the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd in the same year as the global Covid-19 pandemic. Since his reelection, Trump has made the elimination of DEI programs a centerpiece of his administration, cracking down on diversity efforts in the federal government with a series of executive orders. In January, the Defense Department's intelligence agency paused observances of cultural or historical annual events – like Juneteenth – in response to Trump's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace, the Associated Press reported. In a statement to CNN earlier this month, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the agency is 'proud of our warriors and their history,' but will focus 'on the character of their service instead of their immutable characteristics.' 'Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,' Parnell added. The impacts of the federal rollback of DEI practices have begun to trickle down to local communities. Several areas across the country have canceled or scaled back celebrations for the holiday, citing safety concerns, mixed feedback from the community and other issues. Reggie Johnson, president of the NAACP Metuchen Edison Piscataway Area Branch in New Jersey, said he had to move his organization's annual Juneteenth celebration to a smaller location after staff at the federal site where it was previously held expressed uncertainty about hosting it. 'The contractors misinterpreted our event as a DEI initiative,' Johnson said. 'They didn't want to risk having it and losing it because of Trump's interpretation of Juneteenth.' Five days later, Johnson said, federal staff called back to say the event would be allowed. But by then, he had already secured another space. A museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia, had to scale back its Juneteenth celebration because it could no longer access its National Endowment for the Arts funding. 'Our Juneteenth Grant was officially retracted on April 29th-well after planning begun for this year's festivities,' the president and CEO of the Fredericksburg Area Museum, Sam McKelvey, told CNN in an emailed statement this week. 'We are still holding a much smaller event with the museum in the red but the community has stepped up for us and allowed us to make it still happen.' While eliminating a federal holiday would require an act of Congress, experts warn that any dilution of the holiday celebration is cause for concern. 'Most Americans don't have a kind of deep knowledge of Juneteenth, but even that, what they know, will disappear,' Robert Bland, assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Tennessee, said. Blythewood, South Carolina, Mayor Sloan J. Griffin III was elected in 2023 to a town of about 4,772 people – being only the second Black person to do so. This year, he was the only member of the town council to vote in favor of holding Juneteenth and Fourth of July events. In May, the town's Facebook page said the cancelations were 'due to safety concerns,' something that the mayor attributed to unprecedented population growth. Blythewood recently had two incidents where teenagers were involved in fights, which led to an event being canceled. Griffin also noted that there was a recent shooting around 2 a.m., involving minors who were out after prom. Still, Griffin said he knows how important the celebration of Juneteenth is and added that with his background in public safety he's used to coming up with multiple solutions to tackle a problem. South Carolina is a state with a complex history when it comes to race. It's home to Charleston, one of the nation's top travel destinations, but also a city plagued by its sordid past built on the unpaid labor of African men and women who were kidnapped, beaten, raped and enslaved. The state was the site of one of the nation's most racially motivated attacks in recent history and was among the last to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. 'I was the one that really started the Juneteenth piece here,' the mayor said, noting he was a council member at the time and supported commemorating the holiday. 'When we talk about Juneteenth in the history of the heritage, it is important that we never we never forget the past … but we also embrace the future and regenerate that burning desire that our parents and grandparents had in the 60s, to change things.' A former 2nd Ward alderman for the city of Plano, Illinois – the first city in the state to adopt Juneteenth as a holiday – agrees. 'I really think that it's an opportunity for us to tell our story, without being interrupted,' Jamal Williams said. 'We are now in 2025 and we're still talking about first, the first African American to do this … You know, we've been free for a long time.' Williams says he was the first Black member of the city's council. His last day serving as an alderman was last month. For years, he's helped organize Juneteenth events in the Plano community, including one in 2022 that drew about 1,100 people. That number dropped to less than half – roughly 500 people – in 2024, according to Williams. This year the former alderman decided not to hold an event in Plano after a lack of sponsors looking to participate – though he is supporting an event in nearby Yorkville, a few miles away. 'I got labeled as someone that only wanted to support the Black community, not necessarily the people in Ward 2, which I was elected to do,' Williams said. Another Juneteenth-related event across state lines was also canceled, as Indy Juneteenth in Indianapolis announced it would pause its parade but still hold several events to observe the holiday. The event's executive director said he tried to explore other options to keep the parade going. 'We were ultimately denied by public safety officials due to reported concerns from nearby residents, despite similar events taking place in that area in the past,' Executive Director James Webb told CNN. An organization that typically hosts a Juneteenth event at a local park in Bend, Oregon, said it was postponing this year's celebration – citing growing racial tensions and threats. And in Denver, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival was scaled back to a single-day event after several major sponsors either pulled out or reduced their contributions this year. Norman Harris, the festival's lead organizer, said the loss of support was abrupt and came without a clear explanation. Educators caution against conflating DEI with historical remembrances of holidays like Juneteenth. 'DEI efforts and historical remembrance celebrations are two totally different things,' inclusive leadership educator and scholar Toby S. Jenkins said. 'Fourth of July is not DEI, even though it celebrates freedom from political oppression. Memorial Day isn't DEI, even though it honors a protected population, our veterans.' Still, some say the scaling back and cancelations of these events paints a picture of how much work still needs to be done. 'I think it really affirms what we've already known. There are too many entities in our country who are not serious about freedom and liberation,' Levy said. 'I would really just hope that Black people, wherever they are, use it as an opportunity to connect, to build, to plan, for our future like we've always had to do, and to return to those traditions and strategies and wisdom of our ancestors of what to do in these moments of repression and hate,' Levy added. CNN's Nicquel Terry Ellis and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.
CNN
2 days ago
- Politics
- CNN
How cities are scaling back Juneteenth celebrations after Trump-era DEI rollbacks
Despite Juneteenth's status as a federal holiday, celebrations across the country are being scaled back or canceled. Organizers say safety issues along with mounting resistance to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives are making it harder to hold events – raising concerns that political backlash is threatening the commemoration of Black freedom at a time when experts say it is most needed. 'What we're seeing – businesses pulling back and universities canceling programs in response to attacks on DEI – shows that many institutions and corporations were never truly committed to diversity and inclusion,' said LaTasha Levy, a professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, DC. 'We're not even being honest about what DEI really stands for.' Juneteenth is the oldest regular US celebration of the end of slavery. It commemorates June 19, 1865 – the day that Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger rode into Galveston, Texas, and told a group of slaves that the Civil War had ended and they were free - more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. President Donald Trump tried to take credit for making Juneteenth 'very famous,' saying during his first term in 2020 that, 'nobody had ever heard of it.' His comments came while the nation was reeling from ongoing civil unrest after George Floyd's death at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. But Juneteenth didn't become an official holiday until 2021, under President Joe Biden's administration – the first holiday to be approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Experts say this happened in part due to a racial pandemic - with the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and Floyd in the same year as the global Covid-19 pandemic. Since his reelection, Trump has made the elimination of DEI programs a centerpiece of his administration, cracking down on diversity efforts in the federal government with a series of executive orders. In January, the Defense Department's intelligence agency paused observances of cultural or historical annual events – like Juneteenth – in response to Trump's ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in the federal workplace, the Associated Press reported. In a statement to CNN earlier this month, chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the agency is 'proud of our warriors and their history,' but will focus 'on the character of their service instead of their immutable characteristics.' 'Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force – to put one group ahead of another – erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution,' Parnell added. The impacts of the federal rollback of DEI practices have begun to trickle down to local communities. Several areas across the country have canceled or scaled back celebrations for the holiday, citing safety concerns, mixed feedback from the community and other issues. Reggie Johnson, president of the NAACP Metuchen Edison Piscataway Area Branch in New Jersey, said he had to move his organization's annual Juneteenth celebration to a smaller location after staff at the federal site where it was previously held expressed uncertainty about hosting it. 'The contractors misinterpreted our event as a DEI initiative,' Johnson said. 'They didn't want to risk having it and losing it because of Trump's interpretation of Juneteenth.' Five days later, Johnson said, federal staff called back to say the event would be allowed. But by then, he had already secured another space. A museum in Fredericksburg, Virginia, had to scale back its Juneteenth celebration because it could no longer access its National Endowment for the Arts funding. 'Our Juneteenth Grant was officially retracted on April 29th-well after planning begun for this year's festivities,' the president and CEO of the Fredericksburg Area Museum, Sam McKelvey, told CNN in an emailed statement this week. 'We are still holding a much smaller event with the museum in the red but the community has stepped up for us and allowed us to make it still happen.' While eliminating a federal holiday would require an act of Congress, experts warn that any dilution of the holiday celebration is cause for concern. 'Most Americans don't have a kind of deep knowledge of Juneteenth, but even that, what they know, will disappear,' Robert Bland, assistant professor of history and Africana studies at the University of Tennessee, said. Blythewood, South Carolina, Mayor Sloan J. Griffin III was elected in 2023 to a town of about 4,772 people – being only the second Black person to do so. This year, he was the only member of the town council to vote in favor of holding Juneteenth and Fourth of July events. In May, the town's Facebook page said the cancelations were 'due to safety concerns,' something that the mayor attributed to unprecedented population growth. Blythewood recently had two incidents where teenagers were involved in fights, which led to an event being canceled. Griffin also noted that there was a recent shooting around 2 a.m., involving minors who were out after prom. Still, Griffin said he knows how important the celebration of Juneteenth is and added that with his background in public safety he's used to coming up with multiple solutions to tackle a problem. South Carolina is a state with a complex history when it comes to race. It's home to Charleston, one of the nation's top travel destinations, but also a city plagued by its sordid past built on the unpaid labor of African men and women who were kidnapped, beaten, raped and enslaved. The state was the site of one of the nation's most racially motivated attacks in recent history and was among the last to recognize Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a paid holiday. 'I was the one that really started the Juneteenth piece here,' the mayor said, noting he was a council member at the time and supported commemorating the holiday. 'When we talk about Juneteenth in the history of the heritage, it is important that we never we never forget the past … but we also embrace the future and regenerate that burning desire that our parents and grandparents had in the 60s, to change things.' A former 2nd Ward alderman for the city of Plano, Illinois – the first city in the state to adopt Juneteenth as a holiday – agrees. 'I really think that it's an opportunity for us to tell our story, without being interrupted,' Jamal Williams said. 'We are now in 2025 and we're still talking about first, the first African American to do this … You know, we've been free for a long time.' Williams says he was the first Black member of the city's council. His last day serving as an alderman was last month. For years, he's helped organize Juneteenth events in the Plano community, including one in 2022 that drew about 1,100 people. That number dropped to less than half – roughly 500 people – in 2024, according to Williams. This year the former alderman decided not to hold an event in Plano after a lack of sponsors looking to participate – though he is supporting an event in nearby Yorkville, a few miles away. 'I got labeled as someone that only wanted to support the Black community, not necessarily the people in Ward 2, which I was elected to do,' Williams said. Another Juneteenth-related event across state lines was also canceled, as Indy Juneteenth in Indianapolis announced it would pause its parade but still hold several events to observe the holiday. The event's executive director said he tried to explore other options to keep the parade going. 'We were ultimately denied by public safety officials due to reported concerns from nearby residents, despite similar events taking place in that area in the past,' Executive Director James Webb told CNN. An organization that typically hosts a Juneteenth event at a local park in Bend, Oregon, said it was postponing this year's celebration – citing growing racial tensions and threats. And in Denver, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival was scaled back to a single-day event after several major sponsors either pulled out or reduced their contributions this year. Norman Harris, the festival's lead organizer, said the loss of support was abrupt and came without a clear explanation. Educators caution against conflating DEI with historical remembrances of holidays like Juneteenth. 'DEI efforts and historical remembrance celebrations are two totally different things,' inclusive leadership educator and scholar Toby S. Jenkins said. 'Fourth of July is not DEI, even though it celebrates freedom from political oppression. Memorial Day isn't DEI, even though it honors a protected population, our veterans.' Still, some say the scaling back and cancelations of these events paints a picture of how much work still needs to be done. 'I think it really affirms what we've already known. There are too many entities in our country who are not serious about freedom and liberation,' Levy said. 'I would really just hope that Black people, wherever they are, use it as an opportunity to connect, to build, to plan, for our future like we've always had to do, and to return to those traditions and strategies and wisdom of our ancestors of what to do in these moments of repression and hate,' Levy added. CNN's Nicquel Terry Ellis and Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.
