Spokane Juneteenth evening events highlight division, unity in community

Two crowds gathered in Spokane on Friday night in commemoration of Juneteenth, the unofficial national holiday that marks the end of slavery in the United States. One met in the park to dance, and another met online with a more serious tone.

At its peak, about 150 people met in the meadow by the Red Wagon in Riverfront Park, including dancing police officers and a wide spectrum of opinions amid nationwide protests over police brutality.

One of the event’s organizers, Kitara Johnson, has sparked some online criticism for her involvement in recent protests, but attendees danced and spoke while DJs played recent hip hop hits.

The event was organized by First Amendment Free, a newly formed group of young people of color including Lisa Cole, who garnered attention for stomping out an attempt to burn an American flag, and local activists Renee White and Johnson.

Johnson has organized several events to give young Black people a chance to speak, once in front of Mayor Nadine Woodward and Police Chief Craig Meidl. But she’s become a focus of controversy and floods of Facebook comments online thanks to her history of campaigning with Cathy McMorris Rodgers and the happy-go-lucky feel of dancing at her events.

At the Juneteenth event, police brought about 50 pizzas and line danced with young organizers, before the First Amendment Free members passed around the mic. Young people made posters. One propped up by the DJ’s mixer said “Juneteenth” and called for people to vote President Donald Trump out of office.

The crowd included Josh Freed, a Republican candidate for governor.

Johnson said she personally likes Freed because he has a degree in mental health, but this wasn’t a place she hoped he would show up.

She said she doesn’t want a party to “hijack these kids’ movement.” She decided not to speak publicly at the event herself because she wanted teens to speak for themselves.

White, who has been on the front lines of protests and addressed law enforcement directly, said she was glad to see Freed.

“We want to know our politicians. We want them here, but that doesn’t mean we’re tied to them,” White said. “I’m free. I’m power to the people. I want to know they’re for the people and if they’re not, they’re out.”

Johnson emphasized that First Amendment Free youth want to ask politicians questions, and if they don’t see the changes they want they’re prepared to “mobilize young people to vote them out.”

She pointed to the City Council as it reviews a Police Guild contract with the city. Johnson advocates for a ban on more extreme uses of force like choke holds and knee-to-neck maneuvers, and she believes police oversight is essential.

She invited police, who came on bikes, to the event. She pointed out young Black men wearing Timberland boots, in dreadlocks and dressed how they like to. She said it’s humanizing for police to interact with young Black men in a relaxed environment.

“(Young Black people) don’t have to hug on (the police) and kiss on them,” Johnson said. “But you can’t kill your brother.”

She said events like these are humanizing and allow police to see Black men as brothers.

Jasmine Pohlreich, a 23-year-old Black woman who moved to Spokane last year, came with her friend Emma Hieronymus to the park event.

Pohlreich and Hieronymus said they were happy Johnson could bring people together and “set our differences aside.”

The two stand for police accountability. Hieronymus said police should not be allowed to turn their body cameras off.

To them, seeing Meidl at one of Johnson’s events felt genuine, and so did the police presence at the Juneteenth event.

Graig Butler, a communication outreach officer for the Spokane Police Department, has worked with Johnson through her work at Excelsior Wellness. Both were involved in the Spokane Police Department’s Youth & Police Initiative, which allows high-risk students and officers to share stories with each other for a week.

Butler said it was sad that people critical of Johnson don’t see an issue with “pigeonholing” a “spiritual” Black woman for her friendship with McMorris Rodgers, who is a Republican.

Still, those relationships have caused some community members to turn away from Johnson’s events.

Amber Hoit, a 30-year-old artist and woman of color in Spokane, did not attend either Juneteenth evening event, celebrating the unofficial national holiday that marked the moment slaves in Texas learned of their emancipation and the end of slavery in the United States.

Instead, Hoit was painting a mural of a woman with rainbow-colored hair on a boarded-up window downtown on Riverside Avenue.

She said she’d head to the Globe Bar and Kitchen to dance and celebrate being a Black woman later because the bar announced it would donate 10% of its alcohol sales to Spokane’s NAACP chapter. She has attended other events organized by Johnson but changed her mind about Johnson’s intentions after conferring with friends.

“It seems great, and at first I was trying to keep the peace with my friends, like we can all get along,” Hoit said. “But then I saw what they were saying. It seems like she has something up her sleeve.”

While First Amendment Free met in the park, several prominent Black community leaders participated in a virtual panel organized by the Inland Northwest Juneteenth Coalition, a group that’s put on Juneteenth celebrations in Spokane since 2011.

Panelists included Betsy Wilkerson, the sole Black member of the Spokane City Council. Spokane Public Schools Board President Jerrall Haynes participated in the Facebook Live discussion, titled “Chains! to Change? Where do we go from here as a community?”

The discussion revolved around the racial and social climate in Spokane, the Black community’s next steps for change and the place Juneteenth occupies in the culture during such a time.

Other panelists included youth activist Jada Richardson, whose father Ed, a Spokane police officer, mingled at the First Amendment Free event.

Johnson said she believed gatherings of those with diverse opinions amplified the message of young Black people.

“My voice is unified,” Johnson said. “It makes that audience bigger and it brings people that would never hear ‘Black Lives Matter’ otherwise.”

Reporter Riley Haun contributed to this report.