By Dianne Anderson

Statistically, the Black community runs two to three times more negatively impacted in every area of race bias in healthcare, education, housing, and have come to rely on events like the annual Juneteenth festival as a lifeline of familiar faces they know and trust.

That may soon end as the City of Santa Ana sets up to remove the Orange County Heritage Council from hosting the event.

Dwayne Shipp said that recent moves to bring outsiders into the community are not only misguided, but the process has been underhanded.

He said the city should honor its original good faith agreement for the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), and that it was even more disappointing to hear the Mayor publicly refer to the event as a party.

“The Mayor went on public record, I recorded the clip. She called Juneteenth a party, and said we don’t have $75,000 for a party. It was totally unprofessional,” said Shipp, president of the Orange County Heritage Council.

Other city events and fiestas are actual parties, but he said Juneteenth provides numerous services that would be otherwise hard for the Black community to access. He commended Councilmember Ben Vasquez, who visited Juneteenth in his first year, but the Mayor has not yet attended.

The problem stems from an improperly implemented MOU, he said, adding the former city manager failed to update a Scope of Services as promised. It was the same city manager, now retired, who rejected his Juneteenth flyer submitted to the city, saying that it “was too Pan-African,” he said.

For the past three years, OC Heritage Council has drawn thousands for Juneteenth services. He said the city contacted him with a slim window of time to respond to an RFP, but he also contends that other city events do not require an RFP, only his Juneteenth and the Chicano Heritage Festival.

Shipp said he was offered a couple of thousand dollars to share his ideas and vendors with a company that won the RFP out of Temecula, that he said has no ties to the local Black community,

“We created the Juneteenth event in the city. Our culture is not for sale,” he said.

For weeks, vendors that regularly participate in the Orange County Heritage Council’s Black History Parade have been calling nonstop about the Juneteenth event.

“You’re sending someone from the outside. This is our culture that we built and we live. The Black History Parade is the longest-running African American event in this county and we just had a street named after my mother,” he said.

Before OC-HC spearheaded and curated the local event, he said that he received the blessings of the late activist and organizer, Barbara Junious, from Huntington Beach. In prior years, the OC NAACP led Juneteenth events in the city.

This week, Shipp will also speak as a community leader at an event featuring scholar and author, Dr. Cornel West, to be held at Second Baptist Church in Santa Ana on March 29, hosted by the National Action Network, Orange County.

There, he wants to share an inspirational quote from Dr. Maya Angelou, which reminds him of his mother, who started the city’s Black History Parade 44 years ago.

“It’s me being the vine of the root of my mother, basically speaking about how when there was nothing to do in this community, she was a visionary,” he said.

On April 2, Shipp and others will also come out to the City Council meeting to support keeping their Juneteenth event hosted by the Orange County Heritage Council.

Santa Ana City Spokesperson Paul Eakens said the city’s response is that there were concerns of irregularities regarding last year’s City of Santa Ana Juneteenth Festival, and the city issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) in November 2023 to select an event organizer and ensure a structured and transparent process for this year’s event.

The city said they contacted Orange County Heritage Council several times to request a review of the RFP, and to submit a proposal for the city-funded event.

“We were disappointed that they did not do so. Legally, once an RFP is issued, the City is obligated to select from among the proposals that were submitted,” he said in an email.

Community Advocate Connie Jones, who is on the board of the Orange County Heritage Council, said their Juneteenth event goes above and beyond what is construed as a celebration. It’s about guiding the community to local resources, Black doctors, educators, vendors and jobs.

She said that outside sources are not equipped to handle or reach the local Black community.

“If you’re someone in need, you’re not just going to anyone that you don’t know to ask for help. You’re going to trusted organizations, people who you’ve seen before, heard before, to get help for resources,” she said.

The Black community faces higher rates than all other races in areas of health impact in areas of breast cancer, prostate cancer, diabetes, which, journals including the New England Journal of Medicine point to disparities because of racism and bias. Those types of hindrances equally negatively impact other areas of well-being, including education, housing and food help.

Volunteers also regularly come out from NCNW and the Deltas, health-focused organizations that share their information and follow-up resources. She said the Orange County Heritage Council always brings in locally sourced Black vendors to get trusted guidance and care.

“You’re not just going to someone who comes out there with a red white and blue flag – and say ‘here’s my name, address and social security number.’ They’re not going to do that,” she said.

For more information, see https://www.oc-hc.org/