As with many holidays, celebrations will range from the small and personal, to larger community activities, to even larger, possibly more commercialized events. To respond to the OP’s question, I think it’s great that your parents went to the event, and I’m sure that everyone was, indeed, welcome.

As a Black woman, I think it’s important for everyone to know our history, and to celebrate our freedoms, and I completely support racially and culturally inclusive events and experiences that do that.

Personally, my feelings about the holiday are complicated. Juneteenth celebrates freedom, but it also highlights the unwillingness of many to acknowledge those freedoms until they were forced to do so. “Freedom” was also quickly followed by Jim Crow laws, the growth of groups like the KKK, and the use of law enforcement agencies to viciously enforce legal segregation, and, often, white supremacy. I spent the holiday quietly, reading “My Grandmother’s Hands — Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies” — a book intended primarily for Black and white American audiences, listening to music (Jon Batiste), sharing conversations and food with friends, and meditating. Next year, perhaps, I’ll do something on a larger scale. This year I wanted to acknowledge my ancestors and my accomplishments. I wanted to fill my own spaces and acknowledge my own needs. Next year, I may acknowledge and celebrate Juneteenth in completely different ways.

While I would have been open to share these activities with anyone, my only caveat is that, at least for now, I’d resent being put in the role of “explaining” Juneteenth to someone who treated me as available for their own educational experience rather than for my own.

tldr: It’s for everyone!

Excellent article on this issue, from 2015:

Why Juneteenth Needs to be a National Holiday
June 19, 1865, marks the day when news of emancipation and the Civil War's end finally reached the last group of slaves in America. It should be treated with the same respect we give Independence Day.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/kwz9dx/why-juneteenth-needs-to-be-a-national-holiday-619


It really is as important as July 4th in our nation's history. When you view through that lens, I think it's actually very important for white Americans to actively celebrate this day.

Anonymous wrote:We had an interesting debate over what people should eat as part of the celebration. Traditional southern food? Fried chicken and watermelon? But is that racist? We eat corned beef and cabbage on st Patrick’s day even though we’re not Irish. And we eat German food during Octoberfest. Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo.

LOL. You know white people in the South eat fried chicken and watermelon, too, right? We ate that my whole life growing up in Tennessee with other white people, and not as some sort of appropriation. Literally that is regional food.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Juneteenth celebrates the official end of slavery in the US. It is an American holiday we should celebrate, regardless of skin tone.

No it doesn't. Please read up on it.

"Official" in the sense that, in Texas, people were still enslaved after the abolition of slavery. It took 6+ months for the remaining enslaved people to be freed. It's not like the plantation owning enslavers were gonna tell them.

But saying the holiday celebrates the official end of slavery is incorrect. It's celebrating us as Black people ALL being FREE. (sort of)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My partner and I wanted to go to our local celebration but were hesitant. We saw several social media posts by Black individuals who basically said the same thing: white people stay away, let us have something that's all ours.

We decided to not attend and respect those feelings. We did drive by and saw hardly any white people there. We decided to just show our support by visiting our favorite Black-owned restaurant for lunch.

It'll definitely be interesting to see how the holiday celebrations develop in the future.

Like, we didn't want to step on anyone's toes... but we also don't want there to be an attitude by others in our community that white people don't care. Very tricky to navigate.

I’m Black and find this VERY damaging to the community. While Juneteenth is forever connected to the enslavement of Blacks (and I’ve certainly inherited the generational trauma from my ancestors), I think it should be seen as a holiday that celebrates human dignity and our equality as human beings. Therefore, we should celebrate TOGETHER as a community. I want to see my white neighbors, friends, and brethren there. I don’t want my Black brethren to celebrate while my white brethren are excluded and not sure what to do. That only further divides us and makes it more difficult to battle the ongoing issues of racism plaguing our society.

Black woman here and I’m curious about what you saw that you interpreted as ‘basically being told to stay away’ because that is very different than the things that I was. Wondering if it’s just a difference set of people or if we’ve interpreted the same sorts of posts in different ways.

Mostly IG stories which have expired by now. But literally, "stay home white people" and also telling them to cash app black people reparations. Seriously.

Black woman here and I saw those same IG posts as the PP above. I though the cashapp thing was inappropriate. I do somewhat agree with the activities being slightly different for Black people vs. Everyone else. For everyone else it is perhaps a day to reflect on your commitment to equality and anti-racism and ways to support communities of color. For African-Americans its celebrating being free-ish. That said I would personally want to see white people at events. The key is the holiday should not be taken over by white people or commodified.

I think it’s already been commodified. Flags. Stickers. Decor. Etc.

The head of urban music or some such was on npr talking about Apple’s Juneteenth playlist. He pretty much said white people and corporations shouldn’t commodify the holiday and yet there he was representing Apple Music. I mean…

Anonymous wrote:We had an interesting debate over what people should eat as part of the celebration. Traditional southern food? Fried chicken and watermelon? But is that racist? We eat corned beef and cabbage on st Patrick’s day even though we’re not Irish. And we eat German food during Octoberfest. Mexican food on Cinco de Mayo.

Traditional bbq food and red food and drinks. I think strawberry pie is the traditional dessert. (Pretty sure I saw that on blackish of black AF, but google backs it up).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My partner and I wanted to go to our local celebration but were hesitant. We saw several social media posts by Black individuals who basically said the same thing: white people stay away, let us have something that's all ours.

We decided to not attend and respect those feelings. We did drive by and saw hardly any white people there. We decided to just show our support by visiting our favorite Black-owned restaurant for lunch.

It'll definitely be interesting to see how the holiday celebrations develop in the future.

Like, we didn't want to step on anyone's toes... but we also don't want there to be an attitude by others in our community that white people don't care. Very tricky to navigate.

I’m Black and find this VERY damaging to the community. While Juneteenth is forever connected to the enslavement of Blacks (and I’ve certainly inherited the generational trauma from my ancestors), I think it should be seen as a holiday that celebrates human dignity and our equality as human beings. Therefore, we should celebrate TOGETHER as a community. I want to see my white neighbors, friends, and brethren there. I don’t want my Black brethren to celebrate while my white brethren are excluded and not sure what to do. That only further divides us and makes it more difficult to battle the ongoing issues of racism plaguing our society.

Black woman here and I’m curious about what you saw that you interpreted as ‘basically being told to stay away’ because that is very different than the things that I was. Wondering if it’s just a difference set of people or if we’ve interpreted the same sorts of posts in different ways.

Mostly IG stories which have expired by now. But literally, "stay home white people" and also telling them to cash app black people reparations. Seriously.

Black woman here and I saw those same IG posts as the PP above. I though the cashapp thing was inappropriate. I do somewhat agree with the activities being slightly different for Black people vs. Everyone else. For everyone else it is perhaps a day to reflect on your commitment to equality and anti-racism and ways to support communities of color. For African-Americans its celebrating being free-ish. That said I would personally want to see white people at events. The key is the holiday should not be taken over by white people or commodified.

Anonymous wrote:I think there is a danger of merely “celebrating” Juneteenth and the end of slavery. Slavery ended, but discrimination didn’t, and people continue to lose their lives today because of the color of their skin, and millions of people are denied access to appropriate housing, transportation, education and other basic necessities. Heck, states like Texas are actively disenfranchising minorities as we speak.

Maybe instead of celebrating Juneteenth, we use it as a time of reflection on how far we’ve come, but how far we have to go.

You make a lot of assertions here that many people would disagree with. So maybe we should stick with the things that unify us.