Juneteenth Celebration at Detroit Public Park

Detroit held its first Juneteenth event three years ago when the historically Black American Tennis Association asked member organizations in large midwestern cities to host events marking the holiday.  

The event in Detroit this year is bigger and better. It will include tennis drills for all ages, a fastest serve contest, historical displays and a junior tennis tournament for boys and girls. Guest speaker Jeffrey Collins, a lawyer and community leader, is scheduled to give a talk on ethical leadership. Collins is a longtime tennis player and coach at Palmer Park Tennis Academy and Motor City Tennis Club who received the Dennis W. Archer Public Service Award from the Detroit Bar Association in 2021.  

The festival atmosphere will also have an educational component. Both Motor City Tennis Club and Palmer Park Tennis Academy are part of the USTA Foundation’s National Junior Tennis and Learning network in which nonprofit organizations offer free or low-cost tennis and education programming to under-resourced families.  

Another highlight of the day is the send-off of tennis academy student and Cass Technical High School graduate Jacquelyn McClanahan, who will attend the University of Michigan on an academic scholarship.  

“Most of the participants were beginners who got an initial exposure to tennis,” Shields said, adding that the event accomplished the twin goals of introducing new people to the sport as well as distributing information about summer programs.  

He and King suggested this may lead to event consolidation next season.    

Regular tennis programming in underserved communities continues all summer long as these providers use public parks to overcome the game’s exclusivity, cost, and accessibility. Big roadblocks for inner-city kids. 

Beginning June 19th, Palmer Park Tennis Academy—named USTA’s Best Community Tennis Association in 2020—starts a 10-week high performance tennis camp for kids playing at the tournament level, said King, who played NCAA Division I tennis as the first Black tennis player enrolled at Western Michigan University in 1976.  

This summer, academy students will play in a USTA boys' tournament in Kalamazoo. King also plans to take her top three boys and top three girls to a USTA Midwest junior tournament, “playing on the big stage,” she says during the Western & Southern Open in Cincinnati in August.  

Motor City Tennis Club will run a two-month summer instructional program for juniors and adults, starting June 12, at the tennis courts on the campus of the University of Detroit Mercy, a Catholic school a few blocks from the Palmer Park Golf Course.    

To expand junior participation this summer, Motor City Tennis Club has partnered with Detroit’s Police Athletic League, said Shields, whose solid connections with the city’s leadership stem from two decades in tennis management and 25 years as a Ford Motor Company engineer.  

Whether gearing up for National Tennis Month or planning a major holiday event, providers like King, Shields and their coaches keep their eye on the ball.  

Their mission: to bring the sport of tennis—and the healthy lifestyle it promotes—to the underserved in metropolitan Detroit. 

Register for the Juneteenth FREE! Family Fun Day here. Register for the Level 7 Junior Tournament here.