As the leader of Embrace Boston, Imari Paris Jeffries spends a lot of time thinking about monuments. And Jeffries says that just like physical monuments — including The Embrace, the memorial on Boston common honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King — holidays can act as monuments as well.

That includes Juneteenth, the holiday marking the day in 1865 in which Major General Gordon Granger came to Galveston, Texas and told enslaved people there that slavery was no longer legal.

Embrace Boston is hosting the Embrace Ideas Festival this week, designed to coincide with other Juneteenth celebrations.

“Embrace [Boston’s] work is to think about the ways in which monuments socialize us into behavior,” Paris Jeffries told GBH’s Morning Edition co-host Paris Alston. “And holidays, as we know, are monuments that socialize us into all sorts of behaviors.”

In February, he said, people go into stores and see an avalanche of red hearts and Valentines, and are spurred to celebrate love in their lives. In November, they see turkeys and pilgrim hats and start planning Thanksgiving meals. In December, people see red-and-green decorations and think about Christmas.

“But I think a lot of people don’t know what to do for the Juneteenth holiday,” Paris Jeffries said. “It’s not a holiday that many Americans have celebrated. Many of us who are Black, who come from African-American heritage, have been celebrating it. But it’s not something that people do.”

The Embrace Ideas Festival’s goal is to “ensure that Boston has traditions of ideas, joy, music that centers Black folks,” he said.

Some of the events on tap include a food tasting with chef Marcus Samuelsson; sessions with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson; and panels featuring figures like Harvard African and African American Studies Prof. Brandon Terry, BU Center for Antiracist Research director Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, Urban Labs’ founder Malia Lazu, and business leader Colette Phillips.

“We don’t want it to be a Hallmark, commodified holiday where we’re making things up and the red cups come out and we’re pretending that we’re doing something that we shouldn’t,” Paris Jeffries said. “It is always, always important to center Black people in Juneteenth.”

That commercialization — exemplified by stores selling Juneteenth merchandise that doesn’t quite capture the holiday’s spirit — is something he hopes to avoid.

Instead, Paris Jeffries said, people can take inspiration from a saying often used to encourage community service around MLK Day: 'It’s a day on, not a day off.’

“Juneteenth is one of those holidays that we always have to fight and define and redefine what it means,” he said. “What’s heartening is that there have been Juneteenth celebrations all week long. And so I would encourage people to celebrate Juneteenth at the place that’s closest to them. They don’t have to come to Embrace Ideas. I want them to come. But if there’s a Juneteenth celebration at your faith-based institution or your community center or your block, you should participate there.”

He also hopes to emphasize that people who are not Black can take time to center Black people’s experiences without feeling like they’re losing their own identity in the process.

“That is part of how racism works: it’s zero-sum thinking, that if I raise up someone else besides my own people and culture, I’m somehow diminished,” he said. “We need to make sure that we center Black folks, but also demonstrate that we can center other groups and also still celebrate alongside of them.”