“Acknowledge The Past, Improve The Future”: Freelon, Gunn Named Grand Marshals of Annual BHM Parade

Durham, NC – Spectacular Magazine is proud to announce that professor, Emmy-Award winning producer and BlackSpace founder Pierce Freelon and Joshua Gunn, Durham Chamber of Commerce Vice President, will serve as Grand Marshals of the 18th Annual NC MLK Black History Month Parade & Block Party. The Parade & Block Party takes place on Feb. 1, 2020, on Fayetteville Street.

“Acknowledge The Past, Improve The Future” is the theme of the 18th Annual NC MLK Black History Month Parade & Block Party.  The theme is inspired by a speech Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered entitled “A Look to the Future” on September 2, 1957, at the Highlander Folk School’s 25th Anniversary Meeting in Monteagle, Tennessee. Here is an excerpt from that speech:

 

“In order to look to the future, it is often necessary to get a clear picture of the past. In order to know where we are going, it is often necessary to see from whence we have come,” Dr. King says in his address. The city of Durham (NC) has spent the past year celebrating and acknowledging its 150th year history. Freelon and Gunn, both Durham community advocates, “dare to dream a dream of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man.” They will, as Dr. King states, “be able to emerge from the bleak and desolate midnight of man’s inhumanity to man into the bright and glittering daybreak of freedom and justice.” Freelon and Gunn are ‘a look to OUR future.’

From 11 am – 4 pm the Block Party will be set-up on Burlington Avenue and in St. Joseph’s AME Church parking lot with DJs, Bounce Houses, Food Trucks, Vendors, Face Painting, and more, making this event “For the Entire Family For the Entire Day.”

The Parade kicks off at 12:00 pm. The Parade will line up at W. G. Pearson Elementary School (3501 Fayetteville Street), proceed 1.2 miles up Fayetteville Street (past the Block Party) and end at NCCU (corner of Lawson and Fayetteville Streets).

To be a sponsor, register to participate in Parade, and/or be a vendor, kid activity provider or face painter, visit www.spectacularmag.com.

About Pierce Freelon

Pierce Freelon is a professor, director, musician, Emmy-Award winning producer, and former candidate for mayor of Durham. 

Born and raised in Durham, Pierce has traveled the world, building spaces for creative expression and social justice. He founded Blackspace, a digital maker space where youth learn about music, film, and coding. He is the writer, composer, and co-director of an animated film series called History of White People in America, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2018. In 2012 he co-founded Beat Making Lab, a PBS web-series, which took him from community centers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to making beats with environmentalist Jane Goodall. He is the frontman of the jazz and hip-hop band The Beast.

Pierce earned a BA in African and African American Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill and an MA in Pan African Studies at Syracuse University. He has taught music, political science, and African American studies at both UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University.

Pierce lives in Durham with his wife of 10 years and their two children.

About Joshua Gunn

Joshua Gunn is a Durham native, an award-winning artist, business owner, festival founder, community advocate and for the past two decades has been defacto global ambassador for the Bull City. 

Joshua Gunn, a fourth-generation Durhamite, has deep ties to the city of Durham. Gunn’s great-grandfather moved to Durham near the turn of the 20th century, only one generation removed from slavery, in search of greater economic opportunity and a more inclusive cultural environment. Joshua’s family has remained in Durham since then and has lived through several phases of the cities’ growth and development, all the while clinging to the ideals that initially attracted their ancestors to the city many decades prior.  It is with this spirit that Joshua Gunn was raised, and with this commitment to helping Durham become the best version of itself, that has driven Gunn from a very young age. 

Joshua attended Pearsontown Elementary, Rogers-Herr, Githens Middle and Jordan High School, eventually attending and graduating from NC A&T State University in 2008. Gunn began creating music as early as his Pearsontown days, finding both refuge and pride through Hip Hop music. Gunn’s successful music career spans two decades and includes three international tours, several critically acclaimed albums, film scores and a starring role in national television series’ for BET. J.Gunn, as he is affectionately known, has been one of Durham’s most vocal supporters his entire career both locally and on the global stage. 

After living in the Northeast and on the west-coast, J.Gunn moved back to Durham to be closer to family, and quickly noticed a city much different than the place of his childhood.  Gunn immediately renewed his commitment to his community, becoming involved in organizing for those most vulnerable in our city. Along with four of his friends, Gunn founded the Black August in the Park festival, in 2014 to help ensure safe spaces for Black People in Durham to celebrate their culture and connect with social justice resources. Black August in the Park welcomed 10,000 attendees this year to Durham Central Park.

J.Gunn is also co-owner of Provident1898, an inclusive Co-Working community housed in the historic home of NC Mutual Life Insurance, designed to honor the legacy of Black Entrepreneurship and collaboration between communities that made Durham famous all around the world. J.Gunn is a proud husband and father of two and also serves on the Board of Directors for the Durham Public Schools Foundation, the NC Center for NonProfits, the Durham Museum of History and is Vice President at the Durham Chamber of Commerce. 

Photos submitted