By Maggie LaNoue, Contributing Writer, June 12, 2026
Albion’s annual Juneteenth celebration returns to Holland Park on June 19 and 20, with two days of free events under the theme “We are better together.” Council Member Lenn Reid presented details on the upcoming celebration at the June 1 Albion City Council meeting.
On Friday, June 19, BBQ, games, and a movie night run from 5 to 8 p.m., with Movie Night in the Park starting at 9 p.m. The Annual Juneteenth Celebration on Saturday, June 20, runs from noon to 7 p.m. and will feature live music, speakers, food, games, and vendors near History Hill. Health organizations and community groups are also typically represented with information booths. Vendor booths will wrap up at 4 p.m., with a Gospel Fest beginning at 5 p.m. in the Dr. Harry J. Bonner Pavilion. Admission is free both days.
Storms do happen in June. On June 19, 2021, a severe storm blew over the tents at Holland Park and forced the cancellation of that year’s outdoor celebration. The event was rescheduled and held indoors the following Saturday, June 26, at Marshall Opportunity High School. The new Dr. Harry J. Bonner Pavilion now provides a large covered space for the celebration.
The celebration has deep roots in Albion. Carrie Lee Anderson, a nurse who came to Albion from Goodrich, Texas, was a driving force in establishing the local Juneteenth tradition. Anderson was known throughout the community for taking blood pressures at public events — at Men Who Cook, at Juneteenth, wherever people gathered. She brought the same energy to building the celebration year after year, recruiting volunteers and keeping the files that documented what had been built. When her health declined, she carried those files to the porch of Council Member Lenn Reid and handed off what she had created. Anderson passed away on March 14, 2022.
Reid has led the celebration at least since 2018, when she was listed as Juneteenth Committee Chairperson. A Precinct 2 council member for about 14 years and a resident of Albion for nearly seven decades, she is a former teacher in Albion and Battle Creek public schools. Reid is also the chairperson of the Holland Park Transformation Committee, which oversaw the park’s restoration, including the new playground, History Hill and the Dr. Harry J. Bonner Pavilion. In earlier years, the celebration began with a walking parade from City Hall to Holland Park; the festivities now begin in the park itself.
The Bonner Pavilion is named for Harry Bonner, one of the organizers of the annual Black Family Reunion at Holland Park through the late 1990s. Reid announced the pavilion dedication at the rescheduled 2021 Juneteenth celebration, saying: “Hereafter, it will be known as the Dr. Harry J. Bonner Pavilion, for one of Albion’s most distinguished persons. Mr. Bonner’s endless work with both youth and adults in Albion earned him the right to be honored and acknowledged.”
A 2014 Albion enews item listed Dennis Reid II as the Juneteenth organizer that year and noted that the celebration had been going on “a few years.” By 2016, Carrie Anderson was still involved. By 2018, Lenn Reid had taken the helm.
Holland Park, built on the site of the old West Ward School, was dedicated on August 7, 1976, in memory of Robert Holland Sr., who served as an Albion city councilman from 1966 to 1974 and was instrumental in abolishing segregation in Albion. The marker at the park reads: “He dealt with the physical West Ward in this city in order that others were free to deal with the psychological West wards in their minds.”
Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, with news that the Civil War had ended and enslaved people were free — more than two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. It became a federal holiday in 2021.
Juneteenth at Holland Park joins events like the Festival of the Forks in September and Men Who Cook in early February as one of Albion’s community-wide celebrations. Admission is free, everyone is invited, food is available from vendors, and it is a good chance to see friends and neighbors.
