Sedgwick County Kansas Juneteenth ICT Festival

Juneteenth in Wichita is not a recent invention, and the celebration gathered under the name Juneteenth ICT carries a long local memory into a full week of public events each June. The organiser’s own site traces Wichita observances of the holiday back to the early nineteen hundreds, when families marked the day in homes and neighbourhood gatherings, and the modern programme keeps that community scale inside a week of park events. One point of honesty belongs at the front: the published record never calls this event a festival. Sources print the names Juneteenth ICT, JuneteenthICT Celebration and Juneteenth ICT Celebration, and those forms appear throughout this article exactly as their layers print them, kept unmerged. The longer title at the top of this page is a filing label rather than a name the celebration uses for itself. What the record does support, in depth, is a recurring Wichita Juneteenth run by an organisation called CORE, which a visitors-bureau layer credits with hosting the official celebration alongside several partner organisations. Documented editions stretch from a four-day weekend in two thousand twenty-two to an eleventh year billed for two thousand twenty-six, each carrying dated programmes and admission arrangements that belong to their own year.

About

The celebration centres on Historic McAdams Park in Wichita, the Sedgwick County seat, where the organiser’s own site and visitors-bureau layers place the festivities. The parade that anchors the main Saturday runs from Holy Savior Catholic Academy to the park, according to university news layers, so the day’s two halves connect a school, a neighbourhood route and a public green. Around that core, the programme spreads across a week rather than a single afternoon: evening gatherings, a scholarship pageant, a film festival, swim days, games and a closing gospel concert. The organiser stands behind the initials CORE, printed in full as Community Operations Recovery Empowerment Inc. in a visitors-bureau layer and as Community Operations Recovery Empowerment on the organiser’s own site; the two expansions stay unmerged here because the layers themselves print both. That same visitors-bureau layer describes CORE as host of the official JuneteenthICT Celebration, working with several partner organisations — less a single concert or picnic than a coordinated week in which many groups stage pieces of one observance. Wichita’s role as county seat gives the week a countywide catchment, while the park setting keeps it rooted in its own neighbourhood.

Quick Facts

Item	Detail
Published name forms	Juneteenth ICT; JuneteenthICT Celebration; Juneteenth ICT Celebration
Host city	Wichita, Kansas
County seat	Wichita serves as the seat of Sedgwick County
Organiser	CORE, spelled out as Community Operations Recovery Empowerment
Main venue	Historic McAdams Park
Parade route	From Holy Savior Catholic Academy to the park
Two thousand twenty-six run	Thirteenth to twenty-first of June
Evening centrepiece	Celebration in the Park, Friday through Sunday
Admission, two thousand twenty-six	Ten-dollar adult armband; youth aged seventeen and under free
Signature elements	Historic Juneteenth Parade, scholarship pageant, film festival, gospel concert

History

The deepest claim in the record belongs to the wider tradition rather than to any single organiser. The organiser’s own site states that Juneteenth has been celebrated in Wichita since the early nineteen hundreds, in homes and neighbourhood gatherings, and that account is recorded here as the organiser’s telling of the tradition it inherited. A separate museum layer describes a four-day event in nineteen seventy-eight sponsored by the First Black Historical Society of Kansas; that gathering shows how long organised Juneteenth programming has existed in the city, yet it stands apart from CORE’s modern billing and is not folded into it. CORE’s own sequence, as the layers bill it, reaches an official weekend from the seventeenth to the twentieth of June two thousand twenty-two, when a visitors-bureau layer recorded a park celebration on the Saturday with armband entry. Two years later, the organiser’s schedule page documented a single full day on Saturday the fifteenth of June two thousand twenty-four: a Jubilee 2K walk and run in the morning, flag football, the Spirit AeroSystems Juneteenth ICT Parade at ten in the morning and park festivities running from late morning. In two thousand twenty-five the organiser’s site described the year under the printed billing “10th annual Juneteenth ICT” and the theme “Rooted In!”, with the Miss Juneteenth ICT scholarship competition awarding more than six thousand dollars, recognition for Black fathers and mentors, and a parade drawing more than sixteen hundred participants. Those annual numbers are billings only — a visitors-bureau layer bills two thousand twenty-six as the eleventh year — and no founding date is drawn from them.

What to Expect

Evenings carry the weight of the documented week. In two thousand twenty-six, the organiser’s schedule pages and a visitors-bureau layer place the Celebration in the Park from Friday the nineteenth to Sunday the twenty-first of June, running from half past six to half past nine each evening, with live music, local vendors and food trucks gathered in Historic McAdams Park. Saturday morning belongs to the Historic Juneteenth Parade, set for ten o’clock on the twentieth, following its route from Holy Savior Catholic Academy into the park. Sunday closes the arc with a gospel concert on the twenty-first. Around those fixed points sit the celebration’s recurring elements: the Miss Juneteenth ICT scholarship pageant, a film festival, free swim days and a kickball game. Some elements belong to particular years rather than every year — the Jubilee 2K walk and run and the flag football are documented for two thousand twenty-four, while the pageant and film festival are billed within the two thousand twenty-six week — so a visitor should read the current year’s schedule as its own programme rather than assume every past element returns. The overall texture, though, is consistent across the record: part reunion, part civic holiday, part arts week, with food, music and ceremony sharing the same ground.

Planning Your Visit

Admission needs year-by-year attention, because the layers state different arrangements for different editions and none of them speaks for the rest. For two thousand twenty-six, a visitors-bureau layer states that adults need a ten-dollar armband covering the week’s festivities while youth aged seventeen and under enter free. For two thousand twenty-two, the same kind of layer states armband entry of five dollars for ages thirteen and older and three dollars for ages five to twelve. Treat those figures as belonging to their years, and confirm the current terms before travelling rather than carrying an old price forward. The organiser’s own site prints an email address for the event chairs, offered here by existence only, and its schedule pages are the natural place to check session times for the pageant and film festival. Timing shapes the visit: the parade rewards an early Saturday start along the route from the academy, the park programme leans into the evenings, and the Sunday gospel concert gives the week a fixed closing point worth planning around. Because events spread from the thirteenth to the twenty-first in the fullest documented year, a local visitor can sample several nights, while someone travelling in for the weekend does best to anchor on the parade Saturday and the Sunday concert.

For a useful comparison, see the Sedgwick County Kansas Maize Fall Festival for another county festival.

A Sample Itinerary

A parade-day plan makes the most of the documented shape. Arrive near the academy end of the route in time for the ten o’clock parade, then follow the crowd into Historic McAdams Park as the festivities open up around the arriving procession. Give the middle of the day to the park itself — food trucks and local vendors for lunch, the day’s games, and, where the year’s schedule offers them, the free swim days during the warmest hours. Rest through the late afternoon if you can, because the Celebration in the Park starts at half past six and runs to half past nine, and the evening is the celebration’s centrepiece rather than an afterthought. If your stay extends, return on Sunday for the gospel concert that closes the week, and fit the scholarship pageant or a film festival session into whichever evening the current schedule assigns them. The rhythm that emerges — morning ceremony, unhurried afternoon, musical evening — matches how the organiser layers the week.

How It Compares

Two distinctions keep this celebration from being confused with its neighbours. The first is internal to Wichita: the Kansas African American Museum holds its own Juneteenth admission event, which the record presents as a partner observance — related in spirit, connected to the same week’s story, but a separate event with its own arrangements rather than part of the park celebration. The second is geographic: Juneteenth celebrations in Lawrence, Topeka, Hutchinson and Salina are those towns’ own events, each with its own organisers, and none of them is a branch of the Wichita gathering despite the shared holiday. In scale, the Wichita celebration sits at the fuller end of the local spectrum, stretching across a week with a pageant, a film programme and a parade that counts its participants in the thousands, where many community observances hold to a single day. Its defining mixture — scholarship money awarded on stage, fathers and mentors honoured in public, a film strand beside a kickball game — sets it apart.

Visitor Checklist

• Confirm the current year’s dates and armband terms on the organiser’s schedule pages before travelling
• Set the Saturday aside for the ten o’clock parade along the route into the park
• Budget for an adult armband in years when the celebration charges one
• Check which evenings carry the pageant and the film festival sessions
• Pack swim things in case the year’s programme includes the free swim days
• Carry payment for food trucks and local vendors around the park
• Stay through Sunday evening for the gospel concert that closes the week
• Dress for warm June evenings and long stretches outdoors

Beyond the Park

The celebration’s setting invites a wider look at Wichita’s Juneteenth landscape. The museum partner observance mentioned above offers a different register of the same holiday — an indoor, admission-based event at the Kansas African American Museum — and a visitor with a full week in the city can attend both without either one standing in for the other. Historic McAdams Park itself sits within one of Wichita’s historically Black neighbourhoods, which is part of why the organiser’s account of home and neighbourhood gatherings matters: the modern week reads as those smaller observances grown public, not as a tradition imported from elsewhere. Wichita, as the Sedgwick County seat, also gives the celebration a natural catchment, drawing families from across the county to a single park. Anyone following Juneteenth across Kansas should treat each town’s event as its own undertaking, since the record keeps them separate; the Wichita week anchors the picture for this part of the state.

Why It Matters

The celebration’s significance shows most clearly in where it directs attention and money. The Miss Juneteenth ICT scholarship competition put more than six thousand dollars toward young people’s education in the two thousand twenty-five edition, turning a pageant stage into a practical investment. The same edition paused to recognise Black fathers and mentors by name and role, a piece of programming that treats community memory as something carried by living people. Against the organiser’s account of Wichita observances stretching back to the early nineteen hundreds, the billed run of a tenth annual edition followed by an eleventh year suggests a modern institution settling into permanence, one chapter of a much older practice. Even the organiser’s name — Community Operations Recovery Empowerment — signals that the week is meant to build something durable in its neighbourhood.

Frequently Asked Questions

What name does the Wichita celebration actually go by?

The layers print Juneteenth ICT, JuneteenthICT Celebration and Juneteenth ICT Celebration, with the organiser’s schedule pages favouring the spaced celebration form. None of the sources in the record adds the word Festival, so this page’s title line is a catalogue label for the event those printed names describe.

Which evenings hold the Celebration in the Park?

In the two thousand twenty-six documentation, the park celebration runs Friday the nineteenth through Sunday the twenty-first of June, from half past six to half past nine each evening. The Saturday parade steps off at ten in the morning, and the gospel concert closes the week on the Sunday.

How does armband entry work for adults and young people?

It depends on the year, and the record keeps each year’s terms separate. A visitors-bureau layer prices two thousand twenty-six at a ten-dollar armband for adults with youth aged seventeen and under free, while the two thousand twenty-two weekend charged five dollars from age thirteen and three dollars for ages five to twelve.

What does the Miss Juneteenth ICT competition involve?

It is a scholarship pageant woven into the celebration week. The organiser’s site records more than six thousand dollars awarded through the competition in two thousand twenty-five, alongside the week’s recognition of Black fathers and mentors, making it one of the programme’s signature elements rather than a side attraction.

What to Expect From the Next Sedgwick County Kansas Juneteenth ICT Festival

How often is Sedgwick County Kansas Juneteenth ICT Festival held?

The documented sequence shows one celebration each June: a four-day weekend in two thousand twenty-two, a full parade day in two thousand twenty-four, a tenth annual billing in two thousand twenty-five and an eleventh year billed across a June week in two thousand twenty-six. That yearly June rhythm, tied to the Juneteenth holiday, is the pattern every layer agrees on.

When is the next Sedgwick County Kansas Juneteenth ICT Festival?

Following the two thousand twenty-six edition, the next gathering would fall in the June of the year after, in line with the annual pattern the organiser and the visitors bureau describe. Exact dates rest with the organiser’s schedule pages, which set the two thousand twenty-six run from the thirteenth to the twenty-first of June, and the coming edition’s days will be announced through the same channel.

Will the dates change?

The June placement has held steady across every documented edition, while the precise days have moved: mid-June dates in two thousand twenty-two, a single Saturday in two thousand twenty-four, and a span from the thirteenth to the twenty-first in two thousand twenty-six. Expect the month to stay fixed and the exact span to be settled afresh each year.

Closing Thoughts

Taken as the record presents it, Juneteenth ICT is a Wichita institution with a documented week of programming, a named organiser, year-specific admission terms and a history that reaches well beyond its current billing. Read the printed names as they stand, keep each edition’s facts with its own year, and the celebration emerges clearly: a parade into Historic McAdams Park, evenings of music and ceremony, scholarship money on stage, and a community marking a holiday it has kept in the city for more than a century.