Santa Barbara Juneteenth celebration helps preserve rich history of local black community

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Saturday’s Juneteenth block party celebrated the joy, resilience, and progress of the black community and honored the local legend who helped pave the way for these celebrations in Santa Barbara – the late Sojourner Kincaid Rolle.

“I know she would be smiling from ear to ear,” said Sojourner’s husband Rod Rolle. "To know that she worked with Healing Justice when they were just forming here in Santa Barbara… She would be very pleased that we're at they they've grown with the organization and how it's affected Santa Barbara, you know, on this important day."

What has been a decades long tradition in southern states like Texas has only been in Santa Barbara for the last 7 years.

Santa Barbara’s Juneteenth block party itself has only been around for three.

“This is a big move in Santa Barbara, because you didn't see this level of blackness, if you will. You just didn’t see it and folks being comfortable with it,” said Wendy Sims-Moten, who lives in Santa Barbara.

Though the date is the official marker of black independence, the struggle for equality, equity, and inclusion still persists.

“When the Emancipation Proclamation was enforced, the freedom that was actually given to black people was a freedom with limitations,” said Juneteenth Santa Barbara Cofounder Simone Ruskcamp. "And so we show up here. We take up a whole bunch of space to remind you that we will get what we are entitled to. And we have not gotten freedom yet."

The annual Juneteenth block party in Santa Barbara marks major progress towards preserving and celebrating Santa Barbara’s rich history and the date that is forever etched in American history— June 19th, 1865.

“We all have these moments in history or in our lives in which we can mark time, when we heard news of sometimes good news, sometimes bad news, but we heard news, it kind of shook our lives,” said Rod Rolle.

Sojourner Rolle made it her mission to document these moments at the local level through the African American Black Context Statement— a project that shows the history of the black community in Santa Barbara.

“It's so important to archive work. It's so important to learn about the history of this land and for the people that have come before us, because it helps build our culture, our character and our community,” said Juneteenth Santa Barbara Cofounder and Executive Director Jordan Killebrew.

With today’s black community accounting for less than 2% of Santa Barbara’s population, community organizers said that public Juneteenth celebrations have become vital in celebrating and preserving this history.

“Most people don't know the history of Santa Barbara. Most people don't know that Santa Barbara was really a refuge for African-Americans. And early 1920s, all the way up until the 1960s, lots of things have happened, first in Santa Barbara for African-Americans. So it's amazing opportunity to bring folks together,” said Cottage Health Vice President Richard Beswick.

Isaac Garrett left Florida for greener pastures in 1960.

“Well, in the sixties, I think you had a lot of blacks coming to Santa Barbara, in Santa Barbara, California, because they were leaving the south to try to get away from that racial discrimination. Now, you know, a lot of the people that lived in Santa Barbara, the kids have gone off to school and some of them don't come back home. And then you get some of those parents by who have passed on. And so therefore, the black population is declining,” said Garrett, who became a broker with Berkshire Hathaway to fight against the discrimination he saw in the housing industry.

And though Santa Barbara felt like a step up for many escaping the era of Jim Crow — Garrett faced a lot of discrimination, especially when it came to buying a home.

“Redlining is a practice that was used by the financial institutions here in Santa Barbara to deny loans to people that realtors and banks shouldn't be in certain areas. If a person wanted to buy a home in a city and the real cities and the banks and derivatives should be there, then they were denied a loan. So if you wouldn't pay in cash and there was no way you could buy a property,” said Garrett.

This practice kept black communities out of certain parts of Santa Barbara — which not only prevented the creation of generational wealth for black families, but also had far reaching psychological impacts.

“You have no idea what it does to a person, not just because of the fact that he was in there to live in the area of their choice. But emotional, psychological. What did you tell your kids? How do you tell your kids that you live in an area if they're going to be denied the right, the same privileges other people have, and except you want them to be a well-rounded citizen when they grow up, you want them to be positive,” said Garrett.

Redlining also resulted in certain parts of Santa Barbara becoming black neighborhoods — areas like the Funk Zone and even Haley Street.

Out of struggle came a sense of community that the black community carved out for themselves.

Gregory Freeland moved from North Carolina to Santa Barbara in January of 1964.

As we strolled down Haley Street in Santa Barbara, he showed us how much everything had changed, but certain places seemed to remain frozen in time.

With so much of historically black Santa Barbara now gone — from black owned businesses to residential homes — churches like the St. Paul African Methodist Church hold special significance.

“If you did sell this property and tear down the memory, we'll be gone. But right now, because it's here, we talk about it and some I might ask about it, you know, what does it mean? Then you had to go into this black history to find out what it means,” said Gregory Freeland, a Political Science Professor at Cal Lutheran who teaches his students about the Civil Rights Era.

The creation of African Methodist churches in the United States was a response to the racial discrimination that black people experienced at white Methodist congregations.

Freeland said this church provided black Santa Barbarans with a sense of community during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

“The pastor can talk about how your problems are related to problems all over the country. Just because you're in this little small, you know, enclave here it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be isolated from it,” said Freeland.

Though these buildings hold history and memories — what they ultimately signify is a sense of belonging— which is why events like the Juneteenth celebration become increasingly important in Santa Barbara.

“There should be a space for everyone here. And it doesn't matter that this only like 2% black people here in the county having this space shows that everyone belongs and everyone is valued. And when you show the intentionality of this type of diversity, everyone wins,” said Educational Advancement Foundation Captain Charlotte Gullap-Moore.

Over 5,000 people attended the Juneteenth “Joy for the People” block party in Santa Barbara on the 100 block of Gray Avenue.

Event organizers said this was a reclaiming of the Funk Zone— an area that once had a thriving black community.