Yoga, surfing and pilates lessons bring flow to seaside Juneteenth festival
Black and Brown San Diegans reclaimed ocean access during the Paddle for Peace celebration in La Jolla Shores, challenging a history of exclusion.
Written by Lauren J. Mapp, Edited by Kate Morrissey
A few dozen kids and adults climbed atop surfboards and powered through rounds of burpees under a slightly overcast sky at La Jolla Shores on Saturday morning, warming up for a surf lesson.
The rapid movements raised their heart rates, helping them practice breath control before jumping in the water. Some were about to hang ten for the first time, while others had taken a lesson or two before.
But for many of the new surfers and instructors at Paddle for Peace’s fifth annual Juneteenth BBQ and Summer Kick Off celebration, simply being at the beach marked a powerful step in reclaiming spaces long dominated by White coastal culture.
“Everyone deserves to enjoy the warm weather, the ocean. Everyone deserves to have access (to the beach),” said Kien Nguyen, a Black and Vietnamese volunteer surf instructor.
The day-long event featured yoga and pilates classes, informational vendors, a barbecue, dancing and a panel of speakers from organizations working to improve Black and Brown representation in activities like running groups, water polo and surfing.
Latoya McKelvin-Westpoint, founder and CEO of Movement Matters Collective in Golden Hill, taught yoga and pilates classes at the festival for the second year in a row. She said diverse representation is important when it comes to physical and mental wellness practices.
“You see all the melanated bodies walking around the community, the smiles, so it felt like a homecoming,” she said.
San Diego County Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe also presented a proclamation honoring the day to Paddle for Peace founder and CEO Risa Bell.
Juneteenth marks the delayed arrival of freedom for enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865, when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston announcing the end of the Civil War and most forms of legal slavery.
While the day has become a powerful symbol of Black joy, resilience and liberation, Montgomery Steppe said this year’s Juneteenth took on greater importance amid the Trump administration’s attacks on diversity and inclusion efforts.
“The vision is for healing. It's for us to reclaim our identity,” Montgomery Steppe said. “I feel the need to put our stake in the ground, because it is our human right, but also our legal right to be here.”
Nguyen, 34, said he first connected with Paddle for Peace in 2020 when he participated in a paddle out against racism in memory of George Floyd, who was murdered by a White police officer in Minneapolis.
He said the fight for racial justice feels just as urgent today.
“I feel like things have not changed much, or if they have, they haven't really changed for the better,” Nguyen said.
Bell, who has been surfing for seven years, said her organization intentionally holds the Juneteenth celebration in La Jolla Shores each year as a way to diversify the coast. Over the past five years, she said, the event has grown, with more people of color who attend expressing feeling more welcome in the beach community.
“We have so many families who come out now, and they're starting to see the coast as a place for them as well,” Bell said.
For Mwenda KudumuBiggs, Fleet Science Center vice president of community service and engagement, Juneteenth offers a moment to reflect. She said it’s interesting that the holiday commemorating the day people in Texas learned “they were no longer beholden to slave masters” has gained federal recognition when Emancipation Day — the date President Abraham Linoln ended slavery in the nation’s capital on April 16, 1862 — never did.
“It's the celebration of the government not telling people all over the country that slavery was abolished,” KudumuBiggs said. “But, Black folks, we'll get together on any holiday because we celebrate being alive, we celebrate being with each other, we celebrate our accomplishments, no matter what day you call it.”
Amid a day filled with celebration and community, tensions flared when another beachgoer forcefully removed Paddle for Peace’s volleyball net.
The man, who was White, started an argument about the sand volleyball court, claiming he had the right to use it whenever he wanted because he built the posts on the public beach. Bell said that earlier in the day, the man moved traffic cones her team placed and did sit-ups on a picnic table in front of a vendor.
Although Paddle for Peace holds a permit to host the event at La Jolla Shores each year, Bell said the group still faces regular attempts to make them feel unwelcome there.
“It happens every year. It's just something different,” Bell said. “The only thing that's the same is that it is predominantly an old, White, privileged male. They come here. They tell us we don't belong. They claim ownership over the beach, a public space.”
That’s why, she said, Paddle for Peace must continue bringing its Juneteenth celebration to the shoreline.
“La Jolla Shores is a predominantly White coastal space,” Bell said. “You don't see a lot of people of color out here, and so when we think about Juneteenth, I think about freedom, and freedom means celebrating anywhere.”
