Brightly colored tent tops lined both sides of Little Rock's Ninth Street on Saturday, creating a runway to the stage where Marquese McFerguson was reading a poem he wrote for the Mosaic Templars Cultural Center's Juneteenth celebration.
Juneteenth is a national commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States. Its origins date back to 1865, making it the oldest-known celebration of black freedom, according to the Juneteenth website.
"Our museum is about doing this all year long -- celebrating black history and black culture," said Christina Shutt, director for the cultural center.
McFerguson said his poem, called "Let Us Not Forget," was meant to celebrate not only black history but also the future.
"This is beautiful," McFerguson said. "To come reflect on the past but to look toward the future."
Shutt said she and her team are already looking toward future Juneteenth celebrations. They have been working on the plans for this year's event for about six months, and began talking Saturday about new ideas for next year's celebration.
McFerguson said he has been attending the cultural center's event since it began and that it has grown from a small crowd to include more vendors and draw a crowd that fills up Ninth Street.
Saturday's celebration had musicians, food trucks and about 50 vendors, which included black-owned businesses, people selling crafts, and nonprofit organizations.
One of those nonprofits is Anderson's Taekwondo Center, which works to teach inner-city children martial arts, discipline and reading skills.
"The whole idea is to try to send them to college," Chief Master Richard Anderson said.
In the 2013-14 school year, 27 percent of black students enrolled in a public high school did not graduate within four years of starting school, compared with 13 percent of white students, according to reports from the National Center for Education Statistics.
"The biggest problem is that most of them can't read," Anderson said.
Anderson said he works on the problem by teaching reading comprehension classes in summer and after-school programs, which are paid for mostly by donations.
"This program is so important to the community because it gives them hope," he said.
Several of Anderson's students walked around during Saturday's celebration, clad in red T-shirts and their taekwondo belts. They were asking for donations for a coming tournament.
Anderson said he hopes to take 15 of his approximately 35 students to Tulsa this week, where they will stay in a hotel, compete at the tournament and then eat at Golden Corral before heading home.
The trip will cost about $1,100, Anderson said.
Anderson said he has won several awards for his work with the children, but he would trade all of them for money to take on more students.
"These kids are awesome," he said.
Metro on 06/19/2016