The Illinois town of Plano made history in its celebration of Juneteenth, but now the party’s getting moved to Yorkville

What Jamal Williams remembers from Plano’s Juneteenth celebration three years ago isn’t just its record attendance — the organizer and former alderman said about 1,100 people showed up. Between the live band and fireworks, he was proud that residents of all races and political affiliations celebrated together.  

“It was overwhelming. There was no negativity there,” he said. “The police were getting along with people. People were parking, people were grilling, kids were jumping around.”

Plano, a town near Aurora in Kendall County that’s home to about 12,000, made history in February 2021 when it became the first municipality in Illinois to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday, officials there say. It has held annual celebrations ever since, until this year. 

Due to dwindling attendance and derogatory comments on social media, this year’s festivities were initially canceled, Williams said. But some residents wanted the show to go on. So organizers decided to move the Thursday event to a church in Yorkville, just a few miles away.

“People in other towns said we can’t let them win,” Williams said. 

The Juneteenth holiday marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, found out they had been freed — after the Civil War’s end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Texas was the first state to recognize it as a holiday in 1980. President Joe Biden designated it a federal holiday in 2021, and that year Gov. JB Pritzker also signed legislation making it an official state holiday. 

This year will be the first Juneteenth under President Donald Trump’s second administration, which has banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government. This has included removing Black American history content from federal websites. Trump officials have also discouraged some federal agencies from recognizing other racial heritage celebrations.

Celebrations have been scaled back this year due to funding shortfalls as companies and municipalities across the country reconsider their support. Still, there’s a plethora of street festivals, fairs, concerts and other events planned throughout the week leading into the Juneteenth holiday. This push and pull has played out in Plano. 

Williams, who stepped away from the City Council last month after eight years, said he championed the holiday designation because he wanted to bring the community together. In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer, he felt like racism divided the town, which is also known as a filming location for the Superman movie “Man of Steel.” Williams thought the holiday would also be a good opportunity for education on African American history. 

“I thought it would be good to let a small town outside of Chicago be able to come together,” he said. “One of the big things I wanted to push was it’s not just an African American holiday. It wasn’t a political motivator, whether it be Democratic or Republican, it was simply to move a culture forward as it relates to education.”

Plano’s City Council voted to make Juneteenth a city holiday in February 2021, according to Mayor Mike Rennels, who said the city believes it was the first municipality in the state to have done so. He said the city’s Juneteenth festivities were private, not city-sponsored, but that many city employees had volunteered at the annual event.

The summer celebrations, held at a local middle school, steadily grew. There were a variety of attractions, from fireworks to comedians to a walk to honor Opal Lee, a retired teacher who advocated to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday. The first year about 600 people attended. At its peak in 2022, there were more than 1,000, which Williams said is “huge for our area.” 

Tafarra Thomas, 60, of Plano, said she has been attending the Juneteenth event since it began. In the past, she had donated to the event, she said, and let the organizers store items for the celebration at her house.

“That was awesome to have it right here in the community, where … a lot of the community can walk with their children,” said Thomas, who is Black.

Attendance started to dwindle, though, with only about 500 people in 2024. Williams attributes the decline mainly to scheduling issues or that the event lasted too long. However, some of it could be due to community backlash, he said. 

People commented on social media that they’re “trying to replace the Fourth of July” or “push the Democratic ticket,” Williams said. Others told sponsors that they would boycott their business, he added. 

“It just got to be too much, so we decided to go ahead and cancel it,” Williams said. “There was a lot of uncomfortability with that. People thought we let them win. But I just thought at that point that I wanted to protect those who had a lot more to lose.” 

A few community members then stepped up to make the event happen in some form, Williams said. It’s now called “Juneteenth in Kendall County” and will be held at the Yorkville Congregational Church from 4 to 8 p.m. It will be “smaller scale,” Williams said, but still feature games, music, food and vendors. 

The Rev. Elizabeth Hartung, the pastor at the Yorkville church, said their congregation has “a long history of showing up in our community,” and that involvement with community events like the Juneteenth celebration is in line with her theological beliefs “to be inclusive and have a wide welcome and work together to create bridges of understanding, create places for people to be together.”

“It is hard to do that today in today’s climate,” Hartung said, “which makes it all the more important.”

For Danielle Tully, a fellow organizer, it’s “bittersweet” that the event is smaller in scope than in years past. Tully said the Juneteenth festivities are “something special” in that people can get together as a community for good food and good music. She’s excited that it’s happening at all, but said it will feel different. 

“It is going to feel a little bit more temporary,” she said. “Like where you know you go somewhere for a little bit and then you leave.” 

Thomas, the Plano resident, said she doesn’t plan to attend the event in Yorkville, saying she was disappointed it had moved away from Plano. Instead, she’s hosting her family and friends at her home — a gathering that’s set to extend from Thursday all the way through Saturday, she said. They plan to grill, dance, play games and have a water balloon fight.

“Just enjoying one another,” she said.

Williams said the goal, if possible, is to bring the Juneteenth festivities back to Plano next summer. 

“We’ll do one where God leads and two where there’s a need,” Williams said. 

The Associated Press contributed.