Asheville Juneteenth celebration begins at Stephens-Lee Community Center

Asheville’s Juneteenth observance began at Stephens-Lee Community Center, where the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Asheville and Buncombe County opened a week of events built around Black history, community memory and public celebration. The celebration runs June 16-20 and includes free gatherings meant to foster broad participation, community awareness and appreciation, and to honor the liberation of enslaved people.

The setting carried its own weight. Stephens-Lee High School opened in 1923 and for many decades was western North Carolina’s only secondary school for Black students. City history says it was the only public high school dedicated to African American students and drew students from Buncombe, Henderson, Madison, Yancey and Transylvania counties before it closed in 1965 after the Supreme Court ruled segregated schools unconstitutional. Its gymnasium became a community center in the 1970s, turning the building into a continuing site of Black civic life in Asheville.

That history made the launch more than a holiday stop. The kickoff at Stephens-Lee included a new historical video and mural, along with food-centered traditions that framed Juneteenth as something lived and shared, not simply observed from a distance. The association’s 2026 materials describe the week as a series of free events to celebrate, remember, observe and honor the hope and progress Juneteenth represents.

The observance continues Tuesday, June 17, with a gathering at Stephens-Lee that includes representatives from Just Folks, The Block Collaborative, Grind AVL, YMI Cultural Center and Legacy Neighborhoods Coalition. The week also features community celebrations, music, food, dancing, Asheville’s Downtown After 5 and a gala, extending the holiday across downtown, West Asheville and other corners of the city where local institutions are helping carry the story forward.

Asheville city offices are closed Friday, June 19, in observance of Juneteenth, underscoring how the holiday has become part of the city’s official calendar as well as its cultural life. City and partner announcements also call for a commemorative bench to be dedicated at the YMI Cultural Center on Juneteenth, another marker of how local Juneteenth programming is linking memory, education and community building in places that have long anchored Black Asheville.