Juneteenth Day

Peace & Blessings to all! 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CCRXHKHj7-P/?igshid=1tlrg7zpu083q 

My name is Erica Melton and I’m a Staten Island resident as well as a youth leader within my community. During the heap of the pandemic, we’ve overcame multiple different hardships along the way, but also made some historical changes. 

One being the making of a special holiday for our culture; Juneteenth. 

June 19th, 2020, I’ve managed, with the help of my peers and many different faces in the community, to bring loads of people together in a large gathering that celebrate the freeing feeling of being unapologetically black. Games, food, activities, self reflection writing and more. The event definitely left a good feeling hollowing over Staten Island for the time being, and I would like to make that happen again, but this time bigger. 

With the help of you all, let’s make this next Juneteenth gathering a bigger one! Something the kids can remember, something the black community can be proud of. Half of the proceedings will be donated to the event, while the other half will be sporadically donated to charities fighting our causes. This will be a beautiful beginning to an annual thing that will make us closer as a culture. 

Anything will help! I appreciate each and every single person who helped the year before, and I appreciate everyone who will contribute now. 

Thank you again! 

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To be black is a beautiful thing, and our beauty is expressed genuinely! I Erica Melton decided to make use of my platform and my popularity within my community to bring together my people through innocent fun and genuine intentions. As BLACK people, we are painted to be something we all don’t entirely share. Do you see uneducated thugs? Do you see angry men and women? Angry knucklehead kids who don’t delve into anything but drugs, gang activity and all the other nonsense they attach to our skin?



June 19th, 2020, with the help of my community and donations from many familiar and unfamiliar faces, I’ve managed to bring unity and beauty back to the date they’ve overlooked. To the history they decided to blindside. And from here on out, it’ll be nothing but an image they’ll be uncomfortable to see. I’M STATEN ISLAND STRONG! I’M BLACK AND POWERFUL! As a youth leader, it doesn’t end here. If anything this is humble beginnings to a beautiful future.




BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO BE! It only goes up from here compadres ❤️




And always remember, if there’s a Will, there’s definitely A Way ✏️