Harambee Neighborhood: Milwaukee’s Juneteenth legacy [Video]

For the last five decades, Milwaukee has celebrated Juneteenth with an annual festival and parade in the Harambee neighborhood.Janet Jefferson calls this neighborhood home.”I’ve been in the home that I’m in for over 30 years,” she told 12 News.Jefferson was raised here, and she’s now back to care for her mother, just across the street from where she grew up.”It means everything. My heart is here, I have a lot of memories here,” she said about this block.According to the online Encyclopedia of Milwaukee, from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the neighborhood known as Harambee was started by German farmers in the mid 1900s. After World War II, African Americans became the largest ethnic group in the area, bringing business and cultural institutions with them. Pictures courtesy of the Milwaukee Public Library show the early days of the neighborhood.The community’s name comes from the Swahili word “Harambee,” which means pulling together.Many …