The Long Legacy Of Juneteenth In Leimert Park

As a little girl, Ariyana Leonard would watch her neighbors push two big barbecue pits down Crenshaw Boulevard from 48th Street to Leimert Park, while she helped her father mix big batches of sauce in preparation for the neighborhood’s annual Juneteenth celebration.

For her family, the June 19th holiday is a big deal.

“As a family, we value tradition,” she says. “I know for a lot of families Christmas might be the biggest holiday, or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa. I would say Christmas, Easter and Juneteenth are tied in our household.”

Juneteenth in Leimert Park

Her father, Jonathan Leonard, had those barbecue pits specially made for him by someone from Texas, his birthplace and the state where Juneteenth — a shortening of June 19th — was first recognized as the official end of chattel slavery in the United States.

On this day in 1865 — nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued — federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to tell the last enslaved Black Americans that they were free. Celebrations to honor Juneteenth started in Texas the next year. The party slowly spread to other communities in the U.S., but it wasn’t until 2021 that Juneteenth became a federal holiday.

Nowadays in Los Angeles you can find several Juneteenth events to attend — from the California African American Museum’s Wellness Day to Metro’s CicLAvia in South L.A. — but arguably the longest-running and biggest celebration in the county is the one held in Leimert Park, a historical, cultural mecca for Black Angelenos. Ever since 2018, entertainment producer and DJ Alfred Torregano, better known as DJ QwessCoast, has been one of the main organizers of the neighborhood’s Juneteenth Festival.

Starting at noon on Monday, there will be approximately 300 vendors and five stages for performers (Jazmine Sullivan is headlining). There will be activities for kids and teens. There will be food and drinks. And based on the last couple of events, some 50,000 people are expected to show up.

“Though this is Juneteenth and an African American holiday, Leimert Park represents all of the diaspora, so it is inclusive of all things Black culture across the world," says Qwess, "and so we welcome everybody to come, whether you’re African American or not. Come and enjoy Black culture with us for the day.”

A family barbecue

Jonathan Leonard poses in a picture with his daughter Ariyana Leonard on his shoulders for a Juneteenth celebration in Leimert Park in the late 1990s. He is surrounded by family members, including his eldest daughter AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin.

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AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin and Ariyana Leonard

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Juneteenth celebrations go way back in Leimert Park, well before it became the huge party it is today. For decades, Juneteenth was a family picnic that many say was started by Leonard, a Texas transplant, back in 1949. He’d serve up barbecue, watermelon and traditional Big Red soda, and revel in community.

“My dad was a historian,” says Ariyana Leonard. “You look at where people migrated from — many of those people came from Louisiana and Texas to get here for better opportunities. And so, over time, Leimert Park became a mecca, and Juneteenth became a homecoming.”

Leonard died in 2017, but his daughters Ariyana and AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin not only carry on his tradition of celebrating Juneteenth but also share his story with everyone who’ll listen.

Ariyana, his younger daughter, told me her family’s Juneteenth celebrations go back to her father and her three aunts’ upbringing in the greater Third Ward of Houston, Texas, with a neighbor who would build a barbecue and share food with the community every June 19. The tradition runs deep, so her father had to bring it with him to L.A. during the Second Great Migration.

“I can still hear his voice telling the same story,” Ariyana Leonard says. “It feels like he's right here saying it, because he was shocked. He would always say ‘why is everybody going to work? Why is no one recognizing or acknowledging Juneteenth?’ And so that's how our family began celebrating Juneteenth and sharing the traditions that they brought from Houston with our new community in Leimert Park.”

The Leonards have been credited for bringing Juneteenth celebrations to L.A.'s Leimert Park over 70 years ago. Ariyana Leonard and AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin continue to follow the tradition of their father, Jonathan Leonard's legacy with their Juneteenth celebration in Leimert Park.

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Ariyana Leonard and AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin

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Creating tradition

Between 1910 and 1970, many Black Americans who lived in the South moved north and west for better opportunities and freedom from the harsh Jim Crow laws. Thousands of people from Texas sought after California specifically, which is how Juneteenth was brought here.

While Black people in L.A. County and all over California have been celebrating the anniversary of emancipation in different ways since the end of the Civil War, it was always on a smaller scale. Leonard, a businessman who was a military veteran, a post office employee and a firefighter, started hosting barbecues in his backyard, but the celebrations soon grew — even people from far away would travel to Leimert Park on Juneteenth to join in the fun.

At the time the Leonards arrived in L.A., Juneteenth “wasn't something that was very prevalent,” says Ariyana Leonard, "so he really emphasized maintaining traditions no matter where you are.”

In 1999, the California State Legislature officially recognized June 19th as Juneteenth. Jonathan Leonard stands on the right in the red shirt next to California State Assemblyman Bill Leonard (no relation) who authored the resolution.

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Ariyana Leonard and AyEsha Leonard McLaughlin

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“It became a reunion for people from Texas, Alabama, Louisiana,” Jonathan’s older daughter AyEsha says. “It became a place where people can gather and speak to each other and see those people that they hadn't seen in years."

Leonard was active in the L.A. community and believed Juneteenth should be widely recognized. On June 19, 1991, the city of Los Angeles recognized Jonathan Leonard for his contributions to the community. In 1999, the California Assembly officially recognized June 19th as Juneteenth throughout the state. Last year, Gov. Gavin Newsom recognized a Day of Observance, marking the date where people take a day off.

Resident Dameius Cooley remembers going to Leonard’s Juneteenth barbecues in the '90s and getting some red soda, watermelon and barbecue. It was a lot smaller than what it is now. He says the family reunion-party atmosphere was a good vibe.

"It’s a really good time,” Cooley says. “People smile and talk to you and laugh and the music is always good. You see all these folks and so many people together, and nobody's tripping. Nobody's banging on each other. Everybody's out there talking about history and Africa. It’s uplifting. You get this whole feeling of ‘wow, this is how it should be out here.’”

How the celebration has changed

Today, the Juneteenth celebration in Leimert Park honors the traditions of the past, says organizer DJ QwessCoast, but it's a much bigger production that has sponsors and partnerships with corporations like Chase Bank, Wells Fargo Bank and Amazon Music.

The commercialization of this event and the Juneteenth holiday overall has caused some contention in the community, Qwess acknowledges. He says it's been a big conversation in recent years, especially after the murder of George Floyd Jr. in 2020, which increased public awareness around the holiday. But as the event grows, it's hard to avoid the increase in sponsors and other attention.

“How we look at it is: why not us be the ones to capitalize on our own culture?” Qwess says. “This is home to us, we want to keep it home. In order for us to stay we got to make more money… events like this give us an opportunity to do so.”

A group of attendees dance druing Leimert Park's Juneteenth Celebration.

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Chava Sanchez

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LAist

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Attendees look at art displayed on the street at the Leimert Part Juneteenth celebration.

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Chava Sanchez

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LAist

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As far as the Leonard sisters are concerned, they see the pros and cons. AyEsha says sometimes it’s great because it makes more people aware of the meaning of the holiday. What isn’t great is when the first instinct is about making money, like when Walmart created Juneteenth ice cream, she says.

“My father and our family have been doing this for 74 years, out of our own pockets,” she says. “We do this for free. We do this as a gathering. We have a picnic. This is a community. When when you see organizations, big organizations creating ice creams and putting Juneteenth on it, and it's like what ‘Wait, hold on, what is that have anything to do with Juneteenth?’”

Their magic formula? They just want to see Black-owned businesses benefit — and also give back to the community. But whatever changes come to the Leimert Park Juneteenth celebration, there will always be the barbecue. The Leonard sisters got emotional when they talked about the significance of making the sauce with their dad and continuing the tradition with their younger family members.

”This is something that we do, my children do. My husband is now the chef and he barbecues,” says AyEsha. “He uses the same recipe my sister used to do with my dad; my daughter actually does it now. So it's like, it's just this continuous tradition of awareness and family gathering.”

“It's very cool for me,” adds her sister Ariyana, “being a little girl, like, picking up these big things of barbecue sauce and mixing this big batch of barbecue sauce with my dad, and now I get to do that with my niece. So it really is about traditions and passing them on to our family.”

Ariyana adds, with a few tears in her eyes: “You got me with the barbecue sauce. But I really love that I'm able to share that with my niece, because she was really little when he passed. It's a way to keep him alive and keep his spirit, you know, present around her.”