Rueben Hays, the organizer of this year’s event and founder and CEO of Juneteenth GVL Mega Fest, said he wanted the celebration to be inclusive for everyone and that all groups are welcome in his effort to unify a divided community, according to The State.

Hays said the banner featuring the white couple is one of 10 designs advertised along Main Street in Greenville, South Carolina. His organization’s goal is to promote diversity by including Black, Hispanic and Asian residents who are part of the community.

“We did not want to make this exclusively Black,” Hays told the newspaper. “That is not in the spirit of unity.”

Bruce Wilson, a community activist who runs Fighting Injustice Together, said the Peace Center barred him from planning this year’s Juneteenth celebration after hosting the event for the past two years.

A cease and desist order was sent to the current organizers and the Peace Center, threatening to sue if they do not call off the event by May 31.

Wilson said the center allowed Hays’ organization to hold the event on its property, and the activist believes the celebration is now being “whitewashed.” According to The State, Wilson learned he couldn’t use the Peace Center for the Juneteenth event a month ago.  

Surprisingly, Hays said the decision to include all racial groups came from his Black board members. They were not pressured by anyone, including the city, to incorporate white people into the annual event.

City spokesperson Beth Brotherton said the city does not approve the designs of the banners hung from lamposts in the downtown area, per The State.

Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday in 2021 to commemorate the freeing of more than 250,000 enslaved Black Americans in Galveston Bay, Texas, in 1865, according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.