Despite Juneteenth building facade collapse, festival and parade will go on as planned

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Despite some serious damage to its headquarters, organizers of Buffalo’s Juneteenth Festival say their festival and parade this year, will go on as planned.

Planning for this year’s festival will continue, organizers however, will need to find another location to do that, after a portion of the facade to the Juneteenth building collapsed to the ground Wednesday afternoon.

No one was injured in the incident.

“We just are thankful, we thank God that no one or no property outside of our building was damaged there were no injuries as a result,” said Jomo Akono, executive vice president of the Juneteenth Festival.

Leaders of the Juneteenth Festival say one person was inside the building when bricks from the facade came crashing down. That person immediately evacuated afterward.

Portion of Buffalo Juneteenth HQ building facade crumbles to ground

According to Juneteenth organizers, no one is allowed inside their headquarters on Genesee Street as engineers try to figure out how portions of the facade collapsed in the first place.

“I’ve certainly reached out to the board to let them know that the city is concerned and if there are ways that we can assist them, work with them, the city will certainly do that,” said Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown.

There are barricades around the area where the facade came down. Organizers of Juneteenth say they still have some fine-tuning to do for this year’s festival. The parade will still start outside Juneteenth’s headquarters and end near MLK Park.

“We are still planning our festival to move forward as expected, we just have to work with the realities that have been given to us,” Akono said.

Leaders of Juneteenth say they’ll be busy confirming final details ahead of the festival.

“We have vendors throughout the country that contact us through telephone and email us whatever, and that’s one of the things that we have to try and implement in another building now,” said Marcus Brown, president emeritus of Juneteenth.

Due to the pandemic, the Juneteenth Festival, the past two years has been virtual.

Organizers are very excited to finally return in person. The Juneteenth Festival gets underway five weeks from now.

There will be three performance stages and events in MLK Park, health information will be shared, there will also be Underground Railroad tours on Saturday and Sunday, plus there will be more than 150 vendors selling merchandise and food and basketball showcases.