TIFTON — Residents of Tifton gathered for a night of community spirit in honor of Juneteenth this past weekend.

Local nonprofit Dee and Doc Melton, Sr. Cultural Visions invited the Tiftarea community to join them for their annual Juneteenth ball the evening of June 20, an event dedicated to celebrating the holiday and those who make the spaces around them a little bit brighter.

Treating patrons to a night of fine dining and community togetherness, the ball aimed to continue the Juneteenth celebration, preceded by the parade held Thursday, the day of the federal holiday, by recognizing the local humanitarians who had worked to make a change in their community, however big or small.

Rue’Nette Melton, CEO and founder of Dee and Doc Melton, Sr. Cultural Visions, explained that the nonprofit hoped to continue the legacy of fostering positive change in the community left by her mother and father, Daughtry “Doc” and Ella D. Melton, for whom her organization is named.

Daughtry made history in Tifton by becoming the first black man in the community to seek public office, and continued to push for change in the area through his work to found the Tifton chapter of the NAACP and the Tift County Improvement Club. Melton asserted that the banquet and its recognition of other such local leaders is but one way her organization aims to preserve her parents’ mission.

Indeed, several of those community leaders received awards for their acts of kindness and service, including Lethia Kittrell, recipient of the Humanitarian Award for Community Leadership, and Sennica Harris, who was honored with the Trailblazer Award, given in honor of Dee and Doc.

Congressman Sanford Bishop served as the ball’s keynote speaker.

Bishop paid his respects to the late Patricia Melton, who passed away earlier this year, asserting that she, like the rest of the Melton family, had always worked to make positive change in the community.

He urged the guests in attendance to follow in their footsteps, considering their place in their local and greater communities, finding ways in which they might be able to support it and those around them, from lending a hand to a neighbor to calling their representatives to push for larger changes.

Following the banquet, Rue’Nette Melton expressed satisfaction with the event, appreciative that they were able to celebrate Juneteenth and the local movers and shakers of their community not only with residents of Tifton, but other nearby communities as well.

“We had a wonderful time on Friday,” Melton said. “I’m still just overwhelmed with the outpouring of love from the city of Tifton, Fitzgerald, Albany, Leesburg … a lot of people from the surrounding towns came in to help us.”

She asserted that her nonprofit was already planning out next year’s showing of the banquet and hoped to bring an even better celebration to Tifton in 2026.