Parkville’s English Landing Park has long been a gathering spot for jazz and blues musicians, so it made perfect sense to stage the city’s first Juneteenth Jazz and Blues Festival there.
The free festival, rooted in the park’s musical history, will host four bands, paying homage to the city’s long-standing jazz history. “The sound of [the music] carries all over Parkville,” says Dave Basse, a local musician and one of the festival’s producers. “[The music] reaches a lot of people, even the ones you don’t see.”
Along with celebrating the city’s musical legacy, festival organizers are working in tandem with the Banneker School Foundation to raise funds for the historic Parkville school. During the late 1880s, the one-room brick schoolhouse, built on land allocated by nearby Park University, was one of Missouri’s only schools where Black children could receive an education.
Banneker School is not far from English Landing Park and was named for Benjamin Banneker, a famous Black leader in the 1700s who was known for his academic prowess and his fight for the education and freedom of his people. The school building and its land, now deeded to the Platte County Historical Society, is currently being restored by the foundation, making the music festival a perfect fundraising venue for the school. Festival organizers hope to raise $150,000 to help with the foundation’s restoration project. The ultimate goal is to create a place where visitors can come and learn about the school and Parkville’s Black heritage.
It’s not just the school that’s significant—the riverfront location of the music festival at English Landing holds cultural significance in the Black community, too. “Parkville was significant to Black people who wanted to make their way out of [slave states] because Kansas was a free state,” says Basse. Black people often used Parkville location as a launching point to escape and head to the free state of Kansas across the river. “Some people even swam across the Missouri River,” Basse says.
The festival is a family-friendly event, and festival attendees are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and blankets and enjoy food and drink provided by Parkville’s many local restaurants. “It’s a family situation,” Basse says. “If you want to bring your kids, ride your bike, have lunch or dinner in the town, you can make it the kind of festival you want to have.”
GO: Banneker School Juneteenth Jazz and Blues Festival. June 8, 3 pm. English Landing Park, Parkville, MO.
