Juneteenth Celebrations Cut as DEI Funding Collapses
As companies abandon Pride Month sponsorships and federal DEI programs get bulldozed under President Trump’s return, the era of performative corporate virtue-signaling is collapsing in real time.
A growing number of Juneteenth events across the U.S. are being scaled back or canceled as local governments and companies retreat from Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives—a broader trend that critics say reflects growing public fatigue with corporate activism.
In Denver, one of the country’s largest Juneteenth celebrations was forced to slash its programming after more than a dozen corporate sponsors pulled out. Norman Harris, executive director of the Juneteenth Music Festival, said:
“There were quite a few sponsors who pulled back their investments or let us know they couldn’t or wouldn’t be in a position to support this year,” said Harris, who has overseen the event for more than a decade.
The two-day event in the city’s historic Five Points neighborhood was cut to just one day. Harris added:
“Thankfully, there was a wide range of support that came when we made the announcement that the celebration is in jeopardy.”
It’s not just Denver. In West Virginia, Juneteenth events were canceled altogether, with the governor’s office citing financial strain. The announcement followed Gov. Patrick Morrisey’s signing of legislation to eliminate all DEI programs statewide. His office said:
“Due to the continued fiscal challenges facing West Virginia, state government will not be sponsoring any formal activities,” deputy press secretary Drew Galang said in an email.
In Scottsdale, Arizona, the city council dissolved its DEI office earlier this year, leading to the cancellation of its Juneteenth festival. In Colorado Springs, organizers say dwindling sponsorships forced major cuts. Jennifer Smith, a planner for the Southern Colorado Juneteenth Festival, noted that:
Around five companies sponsored the event this year, compared to dozens in years prior, Smith said.
“They have said their budgets have been cut because of DEI,” and that they can no longer afford it, she said.
In Bend, Oregon, planners cited political tensions for pulling the plug entirely and said it was due to:
“An increasingly volatile political climate.”
Federal cuts haven’t helped either. The National Endowment for the Arts pulled funding from dozens of organizations in May, including a $25,000 grant for the Cooper Family Foundation, which puts on San Diego’s largest Juneteenth event. Foundation leader Marla Cooper said:
“That’s $25,000 we have to figure out how we’re going to pay for,” Cooper said.
“We will always have Juneteenth. And we will work it out,” she said.
As companies abandon Pride Month sponsorships and federal DEI programs get bulldozed under President Trump’s return, the era of performative corporate virtue-signaling is collapsing in real time. The message is clear: the checkbooks are closed, the slogans are stale, and Americans aren’t buying what the DEI-industrial complex is selling anymore.
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“We will always have Juneteenth. And we will work it out,” she said
This is just the start, and eventually Juneteenth will die with a whimper..
Calling it Juneteenth is like calling Christmas Decembertwentysomething.
First, the down-tick was in error. Sorry…
““We will always have Juneteenth.” Wasn’t that a line from some old movie about a night club in Morocco?
Calling the holiday commemorating the end of slavery “DEI” is reductive.
That said, change the name please.
Of course, it isn’t a holiday commemorating the end of slavery at all. It was a purely local day
not even really celebrated in Galveston, TX, until the DiversityIsOurStrenthBro crowd co-opted it for pure optics.
It’s stupid; let it die.
The 13th Amendment didn’t take effect until December 16, 1865, so there was still slavery in Kentucky and Delaware until then.
As mentioned below, I will be commemorating the executions of the Rosenbergs.
Let it remain a local celebration but stop the push to make it a national thing.
Get rid of the holiday. It is a nuisance to me personally this year because of what is going to be closed and what I need to do. Yes it’s all about me.
There were celebrations? I thought it was just another day added to the calendar of state holidays where they don’t make me come to the office.
It’s not about celebrations, it’s about paid time off.
Virtually every day in the federal government was a paid day off the past four years.
Few federal employees went to the office, and fewer actually did any work while they were “working” 😉 “remotely.”
Then they were rewarded with lord knows how many federal holidays, untold amounts of paid time off, and the ability to make extra money by working for someone else while the taxpayer foot the bill.
My company is giving us Juneteenth off this year. I’m going to turn it into a 4 day weekend and not give it any thought at all just like pretty much everyone else.
The Cooper Family Foundation has the right attitude about loss of funding. ..’that’s $25K we.have to figure put how to pay for’. Indeed you will and if enough people want to voluntarily hand over their own $ to support it then it can continue.
I suspect that like most wokiesta boondoggles when the Gov’t, Corporate and NGO $ dries up the folks who have very loudly proclaimed their virtue by supporting these woke causes will suddenly be far less virtuous when they gotta dig deep into their own pockets to fund their vanity virtue projects.
Yep.
Perhaps they can sell tickets. $25 a person. I am sure this event is soooo important that 1,000 people will buy tickets.
Uh huh. And pigs have wings.
Leftists only want what others are willing (or unwilling) to pay for.
nope
only so they can blame trump and wht people
lefty is stirring up the violence
there is plenty of money from their donors etc stacy abrams >>$$$$$$$$
come on
this is allll being down to foster more violence against civilized people
the major run wht lefty>>blmplo cities as we allll can see are in ruins
they look like bombed out war torn cities we see to see overseas
then the 60s>and beyond brought in Sanctioned Violence >>
then that brought in “WE GAVE THEM ROOM TO DESTROY” which then turned into a “normalized” event
WE only pretend to ignore those facts as being labeled a racist is doomsday for your career …unless of course you are blmplo then its allowed
correction:
we use to see overseas
We are watching a “preference cascade” in real time. It’s a beautiful thing.
And now even more corporations who lost conservative customers by jumping headlong into these sponsorships will FO when they now lose progressive customers by backing out… without getting the conservative customers back. It’s not so much a cascade as it is a tight funnel.
Should have said, “a flat spin.”
It’s the Julius and Ethel Rosenberg got what was coming to them day.
Indeed. I’ll listen to “Ride the Lightning” by Metallica and raise a glass to the man who threw the switch.
I’ve always been amused by the D’s attempt to make Juneteenth a national thing.
Gives me the opportunity to point out that it is a celebration of a Republican General issuing an Order to TX Democrats that they must let their slaves go free.
Pointing out the ignorance of calling it the “end of slavery” when, in fact, slavery continued in States that fought for the Union until the ratification of the 13th Amendment – which Democrats voted AGAINST, even after having lost the Civil War.
Bonus: There’s always some silly clown that then pretends the Civil War was NOT fought over the issue of slavery. Followed by the insistence that somehow, miraculously, the Party’s “switched sides” at some point in the 1960’s – contrary to all available evidence (and simple reasoning).
The entire thing is just a great opportunity to educate leftards on basic US History.
Nobody anywhere actually ‘celebrates’ fake nonsense like Juneteenth.
They only pretended to for virtue signaling clout.
Juneteenth was always a local event in Texas. It never made sense to make it a big national thing. I live in metro Atlanta for years and it wasn’t until relatively recently (last 20 years) that they even acknowledged it.
I heard it was to provide a certain culture with a substitute for Fathers’ Day.
Will be interesting to see how the week long “Kwanzaa” fares now that guilting for dollars seems to be running out of suckers to fleece.
There’s only one celebration that unites all of Americans and that being July 4th.
We don’t take two days, a week or a whole month.
We take just one day of our celebration.
Perhaps we could rename it June Cleaver Day. She did learn the lingo.
“I speak jive.”
Juneteenth was texas state holiday. It was specific to blacks in state of texas. It has nothing to do with blacks in other 49 states. It doesn’t make sense for national holiday. Emancipation Day is Jan 1 for national recognition.
First they came for Kwanza…
So one needs corporate or government welfare dollars to celebrate one’s belief system?
Certainly, when the government decides for you what all your beliefs are.
Huh. Forcing white people to care about black people’s fake holidays wouldn’t work out in the long run. Who knew?
I am so sick of yet another ‘celebration’ for black Americans. Enough already! It’s like the schoolchildren having to read the same lame books for Black History month year after year.
Grow up already
I thought it was an alternative father’s day for people who generally don’t act like a father.