Juneteenth heats up Mountlake Terrace with food trucks, activities, speakers

Sno-Isle Libraries and the City of Mountlake Terrace hosted a Juneteenth: More Than A Day celebration at the City’s Civic Campus Sunday. About 200 people participated in various activities and mingled with local residents, visitors and city staff. 

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and announced that enslaved people were free – more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed. It is now a federal holiday in the U.S.

Mountlake Terrace Mayor Steve Woodard said in opening remarks that the City is still working to have a Juneteenth flag fly at Civic Plaza, along with the U.S., state and Pride flags. “But I went a step further, at least came [here] as mayor,” he said.

Sno-Isle Libraries Executive Director Eric Howard said that during a recent trip to Chicago, he learned that former President Barack Obama is opening his presidential library on Juneteenth. Obama also chose to partner with the Chicago Public Library to place a public library inside the presidential center. 

“Public libraries are not AI,” Howard said. “We are people. We are individuals who care very deeply about the community and the needs of our community. We’re not an algorithm that takes you down an echo chamber that gets stuck in just a few narrow ideas. We physically put books intentionally to challenge people’s ideas as you walk through the library. There is no other institution in our society that does that, and that makes it accessible to everyone.”

In contrast to national museums that are being pressured to enshrine “a particular person’s idea of history,” Howard said public libraries assert that “history is the public’s realm to interpret, not one individual.”

“So on this very historical week, I want us to think about that idea and come out and continue to support that idea and the institution,” he said.

Access Project Founder Wally Webster said Juneteenth is “deeply personal” because it marks freedom that was delayed. “Freedom announced is not always freedom received; justice written into law is not always justice lived,” said Webster, who shared his experience growing up in Jim Crow America.

Webster recalled picking cotton for three cents a pound as a child while the owner earned five times more. He recalled law enforcement officers who wore blue uniforms during the day and wore white sheets at night, using terror to keep Black folks “in their place.”

“I remember growing up in a time and place when Black people had to be very, very careful…careful about where they walked, where they sat, what doors they could enter, what fountains they could drink from, what tone of voice that they could use, and how much courage they dare to show,” Webster said. “Juneteenth reminds us that our foreparents endured slavery, segregation, discrimination, violence, exclusion, humiliation…and still they held on.”

While calling himself “living proof” of progress, Webster said that “progress is not the same as completion,” urging people to both love their country and “still challenge it to be better.”

Later in the Mountlake Terrace Library, three panelists talked about their life experiences relating to their athletics and career, with Alicia Crank as the moderator.

KD Hall is the founder of the KD Hall Foundation and a member of the Seattle Sports Commission, with a background as a track and cross country athlete and Junior Olympics semifinalist. She focuses on girls’ leadership and filmmaking, and emphasizes the power of visibility for Black women in sports and media.

She said her cross country background taught her strategy, discipline and teamwork, which are skills she now applies to business, motherhood and surviving major life setbacks.

“It’s important for women to be on the sports commission,” Hall said. “We do a lot of work with women’s health…I don’t know if I would be here in the state of Washington, truly, because sports kept me out of trouble.”

Mike Thomas is the founder of the Washington Wolfpack, the Everett Royals and the West Coast Pacific Minor League, a “pro development” football platform he created to replace what he saw as “semi-pro” structures. He emphasized “winning on and off the field” through financial literacy, computer literacy and life skills for his players, he said.

Thomas said he works with more than 2,000 athletes through the Everett Royals and the West Coast Pacific minor league program, where many athletes join his program unsure of their next steps and looking for guidance beyond sports. He emphasized the importance of communication, mentorship and listening to players’ goals while helping them understand how to achieve them.

“Some of them are still trying to figure it out,” Thomas said. “They come to these football programs, and they want to see an outcome.”

Thomas pushed players to think beyond “I want to play football” and instead ask “Where do you see yourself next year?” while using his platform to launch athletes into college or pro opportunities or to having their own business.

Thomas said mentorship is a two-way process, noting that he also learns from the community and the people around him.

“Even just hearing them [the players] out, knowing what they want, but also letting them know how to get there,” he said. “I’m learning as well, because I’m learning from my community around me.”

He added that providing guidance and resources at no cost helps remove barriers for young people seeking support and opportunities.

Former Washington State University linebacker and defensive end Ivan McLennan, who is the new owner of Vice Athletics North in Mukilteo, said football gave him structure, discipline and a surrogate father figure after his dad went to prison. He said football helped him to become the first in his family to go to college. 

As a coach, McLennan said communication and mental health are inseparable from performance. “Who you are off the field is who you are on the field,” he said. 

Also, McLennan said he wanted to create a safe space for his athletes who are going through vulnerable times. “I want to continue to uplift and empower the young men and women around me, and you know, I think that I want to create champions, obviously on the field, but off the field,” he said.

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