Juneteenth Voices: Freedom bike ride

SHREVEPORT, La. (KSLA) - Juneteenth is Saturday, June 19, and the annual Let the Good Times Roll festival kicks off Friday, plus there is a freedom ride, which is a bike ride that begins Saturday morning.

SB Rides owner, Greg Powell, explains the significance of this special ride on Juneteenth.

“This is special, because there is nothing like the freedom of riding a bicycle. So I love riding a bike and I am a lover of outdoors. I am glad to partner with the Juneteenth festival. I am going to take the group on this 10k bike ride, about eight miles, which on a bike is not very much. We are going to go through downtown Shreveport, up Texas Street, and down historic Black Shreveport. Texas Avenue is actually an area of Shreveport minority controlled in the early days, and so we are going to past some of the historic sites in downtown Shreveport and then come back for Health and Wellness Fair at Festival Plaza,” Powell said.

Freedom rides set to roll all weekend for Juneteenth. Many of the rides share a common theme: protecting voting rights of minorities.

David Dennis, one of the original freedom riders from the 1961 civil rights era, talks about what he experienced back then.

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