Celebrate Freedom for All at TybeeMLK’s Juneteenth Festival Weekend
TybeeMLK, the island’s civil rights and social justice organization, is gearing up to host their annual Juneteenth festival weekend. A time to celebrate the end of chattel slavery in the U.S., Juneteenth is a vitally important commemoration in the span of American history.
“Juneteenth is the only freedom holiday that America has,” said Julia Pearce, TybeeMLK’s co-founder. “We know that when we celebrate the Fourth of July, more than a third of the American population was in bondage, but we still celebrate the Fourth of July. However, everyone should celebrate Juneteenth because everyone was free.”
Since 2015, TybeeMLK has honored the Juneteenth holiday with an annual wade-in at the beach, which also commemorates local history and the desegregation of Tybee’s beaches in the 1960s. Civil rights icon W.W. Law helped organize the Tybee wade-ins.
“They were doing wade-ins, they were doing sit-ins, they were doing prayer-ins. They were integrating places of social importance that had been segregated,” Pearce explained.
Though the beaches were eventually desegregated, there was still a certain hostility that drove Black people to go to other beaches that did not have the generational legacy of segregation. The annual Juneteenth wade-ins recognize this complicated history and celebrate the coming together of all peoples under the banner of freedom.
The TybeeMLK Juneteenth Wade-in will be held on the holiday, Friday, June 19, at 9 a.m. on South Beach near the pier. This year’s wade-in is held in loving memory of Kaeia Spring Batts — granddaughter of Pat Leiby, the former TybeeMLK director of community engagement, — who was sadly killed in an automobile accident in 2021.
The ceremony will include a program featuring master storyteller Patt Gunn and the Saltwata Players as well as the Samba Band. Local attorney Chad Mance, legal advisor for TybeeMLK, will share words, and Savannah’s 2026 St. Patrick’s Day Queen Latrell Reed, the first Black woman to hold this title, will also be in attendance, along with city officials. The event will conclude with a communal wading-in to the Atlantic.
“It’s a spiritual, cathartic experience. We recognize our ancestors who came across the water to where Tybee is now,” said Pearce.
The wade-in is followed by a three-day Juneteenth festival at the pier June 19–21. Now in its 6th year, the festival lineup will include artists, vendors, nonprofit organizations and performers daily from noon to 6 p.m. All are welcome and encouraged to join in the celebration.
“We try to bring people together, regardless of your skin, your religion, or your socioeconomic standing,” she said. “It’s a celebration of freedom for all people.”
Pearce strongly believes that Juneteenth observance and commemoration is especially important now more than ever:
“When we think of Juneteenth, we’re looking at America in the sense that you had people who worked under the lash, but they worked and they built a nation — when dying would have been easier. What they wanted to do was to ensure that their children’s children’s children would have a place in the nation they build. Our nation is about justice for all. So when we celebrate Juneteenth, we’re talking about justice for all people at a time when it’s so important that everyone be included.”
Beyond the Juneteenth wade-in and festival, TybeeMLK also organizes events for Indigenous Peoples day and Lazaretto Day. They are currently raising funds for the installation of a monument at the Lazaretto site, to commemorate that important local history. TybeeMLK is also pushing for the creation of a Cultural Affairs department within the City of Tybee local government. Anyone interested in supporting or getting involved can do so by visiting tybeemlk.com.
