This Juneteenth, We're Still Making Lemonade

My mother used to walk into elementary school classrooms in Killeen, Texas with a bag of lemons. I was teaching there at the time nearly thirty years ago, and I watched her do it more than once. She'd call a student up to the front, hand them a lemon, and ask them to bite into it.

You know what happened next.

The face that followed told the whole story before she said a word. Then she'd talk about Black history. How it can feel that way at first. Uncomfortable. Heavy. Maybe even something that makes people want to look away.

Then she'd take another lemon. She'd squeeze it into a glass, add water, add sugar, and stir. She'd hand it to the student. Different face entirely.

"Black history can seem bitter at first," she'd say. "But when you really understand it, the throughline is a remarkable story of resilience. We've always made lemonade."

My mother is Carol Settles. Her gallery, Carol's African American Art Gallery in Killeen, became a natural gathering place for the community long before "community space" was a strategy anyone wrote grants for. She founded Killeen's Juneteenth Festival nearly thirty years ago. That's where I became tangibly aware of what this occasion means, not as a date on a calendar, but as a living practice of collective memory and collective pride.

I've been thinking about her lemon demonstration a lot lately.

The WOW Heritage Center is coming, just not this month

I want to be straight with you: we are not opening the WOW Heritage Center this Juneteenth.

Weather impacted our construction timeline at Rosewood Courts, and the opening is moving to September. We'll be moving in and setting up through the summer, and we'll be ready to open the doors when our young people are already in programs and the building has something real to offer from day one.

I'll be honest: there was a moment when the timeline shift stung. You plan for something, you talk about it, you build toward it. Then the weather has other ideas.

But here's what I keep coming back to: September means the WOW Heritage Center opens into a full program season. It opens with young people already working in the Heritage & Innovation Pathways internship program, already in partnership with Huston-Tillotson University and Austin Community College and the Austin History Center. It opens as a working place, not an empty room waiting to be filled.

My mother didn't wait for a building. She showed up with lemons. We're doing the same thing this summer.

What's being built at 1143 Salina St.

The WOW Heritage Center is located at Rosewood Courts, in the heart of East Austin's African American Cultural Heritage District, in partnership with the Housing Authority of the City of Austin.

That address is not incidental. Rosewood Courts has held this community's history for generations. Building a permanent heritage and workforce center here is a statement about where innovation belongs and who it's for.

The center anchors our Heritage & Innovation Pathways program (HIP), which places young people in paid internships with real employer partners, connected to college pathways through Huston-Tillotson University, Austin Community College, and the Austin History Center. This is the Elevate tier of our work: young people moving from story to skill to opportunity to leadership, with the credentials and relationships to prove it.

This is what my mother's gallery made possible in Killeen: a place where the community's story and the community's future lived under the same roof. That's what we're building at Rosewood Courts.

This Juneteenth, come find us on the parade route

The Central Texas Juneteenth Parade runs right past the WOW Heritage Center on June 19. We'll be out there. Come say hello. The building may not be open yet, but we are.

Below is a curated guide to Juneteenth events happening across Austin and Greater Central Texas this month. This community doesn't need a finished building to show up for itself.

East Austin anchors

Cultural and literary

Greater Central Texas

September is coming. So is the lemonade.

My mother taught me that the story of Black resilience doesn't need us to sand down the hard parts. It needs us to stay in the kitchen long enough to make something worth tasting.

The WOW Heritage Center isn't open yet. But this summer, we'll be at Rosewood Courts, moving in, setting up, getting ready. Follow along on our social channels and sign up for our newsletter to see the building come to life.

And on June 19, come find us on the parade route. We'll be the ones at 1143 Salina St., making lemonade.

E4 Youth builds a K-24 creative and technology talent pipeline anchored at Rosewood Courts in East Austin's African American Cultural Heritage District. Learn more at e4youth.org.