A Town That Pioneered the Juneteenth Holiday Is Now Calling Off the Party

Plano, Ill., made national news in 2021 when it designated Juneteenth a holiday before the state or federal government. But this year, Plano’s fifth annual celebration is canceled.

Organizer Jamal Williams said he called off the event after local business sponsors in the 13,000-person town declined to commit, saying they feared losing customers. A downsized version is being planned at a church in the town next door.

“The sponsors were starting to get caught in the middle of ‘if you support this we won’t support your business,’” said Williams, 54, a respiratory therapist who recently finished an eight-year stint on the city council. {snip}

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Plano is a mostly white town flanked by farms 60 miles southwest of Chicago. Plano Molding still makes fishing tackle boxes used around the nation, but other factories and foundries shut down decades ago. Manufacturing and agricultural work attracted some of the town’s first Hispanic residents in the 1950s and 1960s. Black residents were rare until the early 2000s housing boom, when Chicago’s suburban sprawl spread west.

Williams, Plano’s first Black alderman, pitched making Juneteenth a government holiday to fellow City Council members in early 2021. {snip}

He and other residents planned a free “day of celebration and education” on Plano school grounds. They raised $10,000 in sponsorships and donations. Plano Mayor Mike Rennels welcomed attendees from the stage. The crowd sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” known as the Black national anthem, and recited the Pledge of Allegiance.

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Attendance peaked at about 1,100 in 2022. By last year, it had fallen by half. No one from Plano entered the event’s annual scholarship contest, which was open to all area students. Then in January, as Williams was planning the event’s first fundraiser, a Martin Luther King Jr. Day bowling social, three previous sponsors declined to commit for 2025. They worried they risked losing business by showing support, he said. He called off the celebration.

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