WAKE FOREST — The Northeast Community Coalition held its sixth annual Juneteenth celebration at the W.E.B. DuBois Center on Saturday. 
More than 30 vendors were in attendance selling food, clothes and art. 
Among them was Harmony Fairley, a senior at the School for Creative Studies in Durham, who offered Afrocentric artwork.
“Painting is therapy for me,” Fairley said. “I’m sending a message of peace, and different things I draw promote beauty, ethnicity and that Black women are beautiful.”
Before the festivities, a Freedom Walk took participants from the DuBois Center to the Ailey Young House and back. After the walk, several speeches were made and poems recited describing the history and importance of Juneteenth.
Following passage of the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, it still took more than two years before a large group of African-Americans learned they were free. More than 250,000 enslaved men and women in Texas received the message on June 19, 1865.
Among the crowd of hundreds who attended the event was Wake Forest Mayor Vivian Jones, who said the event was symbolic.
“I think it’s great,” Jones said. “The Northeast Community Coalition really brought out the community and we’re celebrating our diversity.”
Aside from the vendors, there was also a basketball tournament, a mobile site for COVID-19 shots and a live DJ. 
Rev. Enoch Holloway, pastor of Friendship Chapel Baptist Church, said it was the biggest Juneteenth celebration in Wake Forest so far.
“This year, the NECC has really done a lot to bring the community together and create such a wonderful event,” Holloway said.