Stretching throughout the historic Five Points neighborhood, the annual Juneteenth Music Festival is part local business showcase, part family reunion — and all parts celebration.

“It’s just a big family reunion,” Melissa Johnson, a Denver native who has been going to the Juneteenth celebrations her entire life, said. “It’s about freedom. It’s about our ancestors and just keeping their legacy growing.”

Although Juneteenth, held on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States, was named a Colorado state holiday in 2022, Denver celebrations in the Five Point neighborhood started in the 1950s.

Neighborhood leaders eventually rebranded the celebrations into a music festival, which takes place down Welton Street from 29th Avenue to 24th Avenue and includes music, information tents from local organization and city departments, a parade, locally owned Black businesses and various other free activities over its two-day weekend run.

Rapper Bow Wow headlined the festival and on Sunday at 6 p.m., Denver native and basketball legend, Chauncey Billups, will receive the Juneteenth Music Festival Lifetime Achievement Award.

The annual Dream Big awards were also distributed on Saturday, recognizing individuals who have made significant impacts in their communities through dedication and leadership.

“It means everything,” Norman Harris, CEO of JMF Corporation and founder of the Juneteenth Music Festival, said. “It’s an opportunity for our community to come together, see folks they haven’t seen and connect with resources. It’s a dynamic and immersive cultural experience.”

Harris noted that about 200 vendor tents lined Welton Street, showing off local businesses and supporting the neighborhood.

“We’re in a neighborhood that has experience quite a bit of involuntary displacement,” Harris said. “Unfortunately, a lot of folks have roots in this neighborhood but don’t live here anymore. So, it’s really cool to be a part of a movement that’s been a cultural anchor that’s compelled people to come back to Five Points.”

Manushkka Sainvil, owner and moisturizer-in-chief of Chubby Curls Hair Products, based out of Aurora and sold at salons throughout the metro area, pinpointed the importance of bringing people together to support the community.

“When I came here in 2009, it was not like this. It was just a shell of what it is now,” Sainvil said of the festival, noting that it was once an entire week of festivities in the 1980s but has since been moved to a weekend affair.

“It’s important as a Black woman-owned business to be able to expose myself and be able to get to a broader community and share my products and help people understand why my products are unique,” she added.

Sainvil started Chubby Curls after moving to Colorado from Florida and experiencing the dry climate on her natural hair.

“Basically, my hair said, ‘what is happening?’” she joked.

Sainvil noticed that products advertised toward curly and textured hair, especially in the natural community, weren’t working. So, she became a bit of a mad scientist, creating hair products based out of plant-based ingredients, oils and butters that cater to the specific needs of Black and textured hair.

Now, she’s one of the 200-some-odd vendors lined down Welton Street.

“Yes, Juneteenth is about celebrating the end of slavery, but it’s also about financial liberation. It’s spiritual liberation. It’s economic liberation,” she said. “It’s fun for community to come back together.”

But though the two-day event is great for locally Black-owned businesses, she wishes the support was year-round.

“I know there are a lot of initiatives to connect the black community of business owners. They’re great, but I wish we had strong connections and stronger networks,” she said. “I wish we supported and frequented one another a little bit more than just during Juneteenth.”

She can’t deny that the Juneteenth Music Festival, bringing about hundreds of visitors to the area, is a great jumping off point, though.

“Juneteenth is American history. It’s a national holiday. It’s important that we all, as a national community, support each other,” Harris said of other cultures joining in on the fun. “Everyone should be involved in celebrating African American culture because we’re such an important part of this country’s history.”

“Everybody is all as one,” lifelong attendee, Cookie Sanders, said of the event. “Everybody is just here to have fun.”