For 37 years Betty Sawyer has organized a Juneteenth celebration in Utah. The commemoration has evolved into a festival that, this year, is aiming to resemble a family reunion big enough to fill an amphitheater’s grounds.
The celebration has been a longstanding tradition, but, for Sawyer, who oversaw its buildout from the ground up, there’s still a long way to go. Ten years after the Utah Legislature passed an initial nod to Juneteeth, Utah is still in the process of ensuring the holiday is celebrated closer to June 19. And, raising the Juneteenth flag in a government building has become a sign of rebellion.
“This year’s Juneteenth is this bittersweet kind of space,” Sawyer said. “While we can celebrate and honor where we’ve come, we still have to gear ourselves up for this long fight to reach back and regain the grounds that have been lost.”
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The holiday commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved African Americans in Texas learned about their freedom — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Sawyer, the executive director of Project Success Coalition, an Ogden grassroots nonprofit focused on health education, culture and advocacy, has heavily advocated for state Juneteenth recognitions. She says she hopes that the holiday helps people learn more about Black history, which she says is American and world history.
“A lot of people have been hurt, killed, died, and we’re still carrying the wounds of that trauma today, and we’re often asked to explain why, or not talk about it, or just move past it. Nobody else had been asked to move past their history,” Sawyer said. “We’re celebrating 250 years of America. Is anybody saying don’t celebrate?”
As part of her advocacy efforts, Sawyer stood next to elected officials during a signing ceremony of a law declaring Juneteenth an official state holiday in 2022. She has also watched new traditions emerging from new state regulations that the Legislature’s Republican Supermajority has passed to overhaul diversity efforts and symbols in a call for neutrality in public spaces.
Juneteenth’s flag still rises amid banSalt Lake City, notably, has adopted the Juneteenth, Pride and transgender flags as official city symbols, a sign of rebellion after the state passed a law banning schools and government entities from displaying flags unless they were included in a prescriptive list that includes the U.S. flag, the state flag, military flags, Olympic flags, college or university flags, and the flags of local cities.
Salt Lake City’s action, Sawyer said, took courage.
“They looked for another way to do it, because that was their belief that it was the right thing to do, and I think that’s the kind of courage that all of us need at this particular time,” Sawyer said. “Because it takes courage to do what is right when everybody around you may be saying something different.”
The tradition of raising the Juneteenth flag preceded her administration, Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said.
“It was important to us to continue that, find a way to continue that after the legislation that could have ended it,” Mendenhall said.
Since announcing the new city flags last year, there has been a failed legislative proposal to forbid local governments from adopting more than one official flag and comments from Gov. Spencer Cox calling the debate over flags “ridiculous” on both ends.
“They’re dumb flags and it was a dumb bill,” Cox said during a PBS Utah news conference last year while talking about the flag ban bill that he let become law without his signature, and the city’s response to it.
Mendenhall has, however, seen an “outpouring” of support and gratitude from people in Salt Lake City and other areas in the state, she said.
“I think what the flags say is that we recognize you, we honor the collective experiences of the past, and we are determined to continue improving into the future,” she said.
A June 19 celebrationIt was in 2016 that the Utah Legislature first approved a Juneteenth holiday observance for the third Saturday in June. Then, in 2022, lawmakers voted in favor of celebrating the holiday on a June Monday.
That’s why some state offices were closed this week on Monday, not on Friday.
After Cox invoked a special legislative session on June 19, 2024, Salt Lake City Democratic Rep. Sandra Hollins, who sponsored all of Utah’s Juneteenth observance laws, pushed for legislation that aligned with federal government guidelines, so the holiday is celebrated on June 19 most years. That last proposal passed in the 2026 general session and will become effective next year.
“I recognize that when the bill was officially written, there was a lot of confusion around it, which is the reason why I put it back in line with the federal holiday,” Hollins said on Thursday.
Salt Lake City Mass Choir members perform during Millcreek’s Juneteenth Eve celebration on June 18, 2026. (Alixel Cabrera/Utah News Dispatch) Despite the confusion, Hollins said, she has seen Juneteenth become a bigger deal in Utah, with more people recognizing it and larger celebrations across the state.
“I think that Juneteenth is necessary, number one, because it acknowledges history. We are living in a time when the powers want to erase history, and so this celebrates it,” Hollins said. “But it also acknowledges the resilience of the Black community, and looking at where we’ve been and where we are now, knowing that we’re not where we want to be, but we’re not where we used to be.”
Juneteenth events: A Salt Lake Juneteenth celebration is scheduled Friday, beginning with a community yoga practice at 9 a.m. at the Utah State Capitol. There will be a walk at 11:15 a.m. from the Capitol to the Gateway mall where there will be a Juneteenth celebration and the Black Business Expo until dusk. More information can be found on saltlakejuneteenth.org.
The Project Success Coalition’s Juneteenth Festival will happen Saturday from noon to 9 p.m. at the Ogden City Amphitheater and will feature music, contests, family activities and free haircuts for children. More information is available at juneteenthutah.org.
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