This weekend’s event highlights the ‘strong and vibrant history’ of Utah’s African American community, organizer says.
“A lot of folks, when you first come to Utah, you think about Utah, you don’t think about African culture, people, all of that,” said Sawyer, who is executive director of the nonprofitand president of the NAACP’s Ogden chapter. “But once you get here, you find out that Utah has a strong and vibrant history, and Blacks have a strong and vibrant history in the state of Utah.”
Betty Sawyer, director of Project Success Coalition, at the Juneteenth Freedom and Heritage Festival in 2021. The 2024 edition of the Juneteenth celebration is set for June 15-16, 2024, at Ogden Amphitheater in Ogden. The year after her first Juneteenth, Sawyer said there was difficulty in reserving a park. She reached out to Maurice White, a friend in Ogden, to see if they could hold the event there.