5 Things Friday

This Juneteenth, celebrate Black people. Here are your antiracism action steps for June 18.

The “Free Huey” rally in DeFremery Park, Oakland, CA, 1968; Photography by Bob Fitch, courtesy of the Huey P. Newton Foundation.

Today's intro comes from REP CO's Chief Creative Officer, Dr. Akilah Cadet.

This Juneteenth, celebrate Black people. This Juneteenth, buy from Black owned businesses, not from big box stores capitalizing on us.

This Juneteenth, reflect on what you've done for the Black community since the last Juneteenth and set goals for the next year.

This Juneteenth, learn how June 19th 1865 is connected to the history of the Emancipation Proclamation (Jan 1, 1863), the 13th Amendment (Jan 31, 1865), and how that coincided with the forming of the K** (Dec 24, 1865).

This Juneteenth, learn about the Freedman's Savings Bank (Mar 3, 1865) where Black soldiers and sharecroppers saved and lost their money due to white owner's fraudulent behavior.

This Juneteenth, acknowledge there is more work to do for the humanity and equality of Black people.

Here are your 5 Things.

BUY THIS. Believe us, the onslaught of Juneteenth merch from big box stores looking to further capitalize on Black culture is COMING. Don't touch it. Instead, buy from Black owned businesses. Specifically, scoop up Dr. Akilah Cadet's "My love language is dismantling white supremacy" tee. All proceeds support the public and social media anti-racism education provided by Dr. Cadet. Get yours right here.

GO TO THIS. This Juneteenth weekend (Friday and Saturday) head over to the Fillmore Heritage Center Gallery at 1330 Fillmore Street, San Francisco, for "Homecoming - Black Panther Party Headquarters on Fillmore: Photo Exhibit." The gallery is housed inside the very space that used to serve as the national distribution center for the Black Panther Party's Commonwealth newspaper, so the exhibit, which features dozens of rarely seen archival photos of the Black Panther Party (many images that haven't been accessible to the public for more than 50 years!) will feel be powerful. The exhibit is hosted by The New Community Leadership Foundation and the SF Juneteenth Fillmore Festival. Click here for more details and gallery hours.

AND THIS. Honestly, if we could be anywhere tomorrow, it would be in Brooklyn's Domino Park for FREEFEST, in big part because the chills-inducing HBCU-style marching band The Empire Marching Elite will be performing live. We sat down with the organization's co-founder and executive director, Jada John, who told us about the band's non-stop training schedule, how they took practice to the parks during COVID, and how they manage to provide instruments and top-notch musical training to NYC youth completely FREE. Photographer Michael George accompanied the band on a recent performance and his images are 🔥🔥🔥🔥. Read the story here.

KNOW THIS. While government leaders pat themselves on the back for signing some papers and finally making Juneteenth a national holiday, it's a great time to learn about Opal Lee, the 94-year-old activist and lifelong Texan who has been campaigning to make June 19 a national holiday for years. In 2016, at the age of 89, she decided to walk from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., in an effort to get Juneteenth named a national holiday. She traveled two and a half miles each day to symbolize the two and a half years that Black Texans waited between when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, on Jan. 1, 1863, abolishing slavery, and the day that message arrived in Galveston, where Black people were still enslaved, on June 19, 1865. Read her full story here.

DO THIS. Beyond being a storytelling outlet, REP CO is a modest experiment in wealth redistribution. Non-Black folks volunteer, forever. We pay Black folks, always. We still haven't landed on the best way to raise those needed funds, but recently, we've found that the regular membership payments we get from our Patreon are actually really helpful. They aren't much, because, well, honestly, we didn't really want to make people PAY for this newsletter. We just want you to get it, and do your 5 Things. BUT...if you are able to subscribe through Patreon (just $5 a month!) just know that your support is a really big help, and going to directly to creatives like writer Ashley Yancey who wrote this profile on former Black Panther Fredrika Newton, photographer Samantha Tyler Cooper who shot SF's first Latina dispensary owner, writer Shaquille Heath who profiled artist Wood de Othello, and the all-Black film crew who worked on The Black Truth Project.