A Town That Pioneered the Juneteenth Holiday Is Now Calling Off the Party

The town of Plano, Ill., made Juneteenth a holiday months before state or federal officials.

Plano, Ill., made national news in 2021 when it designated Juneteenth a holiday before the state or federal government. But this year, Plano’s fifth annual celebration is canceled.

Organizer Jamal Williams said he called off the event after local business sponsors in the 13,000-person town declined to commit, saying they feared losing customers. A downsized version is being planned at a church in the town next door.

“The sponsors were starting to get caught in the middle of ‘if you support this we won’t support your business,’” said Williams, 54, a respiratory therapist who recently finished an eight-year stint on the city council. “We just decided that we have to take a break.”

A lot has changed in the short life of America’s newest federal holiday. Many Black Americans have long celebrated June 19th, the anniversary marking the end of slavery in the U.S., through family gatherings and events such as parades and public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation. Four years ago, Congress voted to recognize the day. More and more employers are choosing to give workers Juneteenth off. But this year, for company executives, university officials and government leaders, decisions about how—or whether—to celebrate the holiday feel increasingly fraught.

Shareholders have targeted corporate diversity efforts. Universities and companies have revamped programs offering opportunities to Black Americans in an effort to avoid legal entanglements or sanctions from President Trump. Goldman Sachs has scrubbed references to race from some of its diversity initiatives. A senior executive recently said the company’s “One Million Black Women” program is for low- to moderate-income populations.

The Harvard University office that in 2021 organized a week of Juneteenth festivities no longer exists, having recast its focus from equity and diversity to “community and campus life.”

Organizer Jamal Williams called off this year’s Juneteenth celebration in Plano after local business sponsors said they feared losing customers.

A Redmond, Ore., nonprofit canceled its 2025 Juneteenth celebration, citing fears that attendees could be targets of violence. A New Jersey branch of the NAACP relocated an event three times after officials at its usual site hesitated on whether to host the celebration this year, fearing retribution from Washington, D.C.

A White House official said those fears are unfounded and Trump draws no connection between the holiday and the diversity, equity and inclusion efforts his administration has targeted. The president plans to sign a Juneteenth proclamation, and administration officials are also holding a discussion group with Black community leaders, the official said. Former President Joe Biden last year hosted a televised concert.

Elsewhere, the party is on. Festivals, parades and concerts are planned or already under way in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago and Houston. Tulsa, Okla., whose “Black Wall Street” was destroyed in a 1921 massacre, is holding a four-day celebration. In Galveston, Texas, a museum exhibit will detail the original Juneteenth (June 19, 1865), when news of emancipation reached enslaved people in that city deep in the former Confederacy.

Plano is a mostly white town flanked by farms 60 miles southwest of Chicago. Plano Molding still makes fishing tackle boxes used around the nation, but other factories and foundries shut down decades ago. Manufacturing and agricultural work attracted some of the town’s first Hispanic residents in the 1950s and 1960s. Black residents were rare until the early 2000s housing boom, when Chicago’s suburban sprawl spread west.

Williams, Plano’s first Black alderman, pitched making Juneteenth a government holiday to fellow City Council members in early 2021. He had heard national politicians talk about the idea in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. Plano’s town hall didn’t even close on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But the council approved recognizing Juneteenth 6-2. Williams won a second term two months later.

He and other residents planned a free “day of celebration and education” on Plano school grounds. They raised $10,000 in sponsorships and donations. Plano Mayor Mike Rennels welcomed attendees from the stage. The crowd sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the Black national anthem, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

There was a live band and a DJ. Families brought grills. The city provided its usual event services: police, portapotties and wash stations. The day ended with Plano’s first fireworks show in more than a decade.

Attendance peaked at about 1,100 in 2022. By last year, it had fallen by half. No one from Plano entered the event’s annual scholarship contest, which was open to all area students. Then in January, as Williams was planning the event’s first fundraiser, a Martin Luther King Jr. Day bowling social, three previous sponsors declined to commit for 2025. They worried they risked losing business by showing support, he said. He called off the celebration.

In online comments and Facebook posts, some longtime Plano residents had been complaining about Juneteenth for a while. The first year, after hearing that people planned to protest the event, organizers set up a designated protest area, but no protesters showed up. Some people griped that Juneteenth was competing with Independence Day or that Williams was trying to advance his political career.

Plano resident Rick Trevino said he couldn’t understand why a Juneteenth celebration would take place in his town.

The use of city resources—police time and equipment—bothered Rick Trevino. His parents were born in Mexico and moved their four children to Plano from Chicago in the 1980s, following relatives who worked at Plano Molding. His father, a doctor, opened a practice. Trevino, now 44, works as the business manager.

Trevino said he attended his town’s first or second Juneteenth celebration but never went back. “It was, for lack of a better word, alien to me,” he said. “I didn’t know anybody there and I didn’t understand why they would have it in Plano.”

After Williams canceled the event this year, supporters rallied. A church in the neighboring town of Yorkville offered to host the celebration, renamed Juneteenth in Kendall County. With only about $4,000 and less time to prepare, it will be a four-hour party instead of a full-day celebration. The band and the DJ will be there. But there won’t be any fireworks this year.