Juneteenth Celebration

Patricia Pine

Mental Health Advocate

The Black Los Angeles County Client Coalition "Keeping Hope Alive"

   It was on the 19^th of June 1865, in Galveston, Texas, two months after the end of the Civil War, that the last slaves in America to be freed by advancing Union troops under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation were declared free by General Gordon Granger, commander of the occupying troops in Texas and Oklahoma.  The announcement of the abolition of slavery in the State of Texas. The oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the U.S. The liberated slaves responded to the announcement with joy and jubilation, which quickly turned into a spontaneous festival of freedom the excitement it was electrifying. A former slave Felix Haywood remembering the first days when it reached him in San Antonio, Texas:

   Soldiers suddenly were everywhere—comin’ in bunches, crossing’ and walkin’ and ridin’. Everyone was a-singing’. We were all walkin’ on golden clouds. Halleleujah! “Union forever, /Hurrah, boys, hurrah! /although I may be poor, /I’ll never be a slave--/Shouting the battle cry of freedom.” Everybody went wild. We all felt like heroes, and nobody had made us that way but ourselves. We were free. Just like that, we were free according to the Austin History Center.

   There is also the Crossroads ABC13 station that honored this Juneteenth Story opening comments to an Archivist and Oral Historian Melanie Lawson about why it is important to tell this story because everything isn’t written, you can capture stories from the horses’ mouth, so the oracle records make a Living History.

   The Juneteenth festival was celebrated annually in the state of Texas and then became popularized in the other parts of the nation as black Texans migrated throughout the United States in the decades after Emancipation. The day featured speeches, proclamations by government officials, parades of black soldiers, families telling “remember when we were slaves” our personal stories, singing of the James Weldon Johnson lyrics “Lift Every Voice and Sing” (often described as the “Negro National Anthem”) and plenty of traditional food, mainly barbeque, watermelon and Red Soda (I knew no other name Red Soda Pop).

   My Great-grand mother was part of this migration as a freed slave from Bain Georgia to Texarkana, Texas (Bivens, TX) my grand-mother was born in Bivens, Tx in 1885 we called her Mammon and my grand-father was named William, and to this union was 11 children and my mom of course was one of them, she hated the country, “she said, whenever I plow up a snake I was gone for the day”.  My Uncle built his house with what looked like razor blades, and the house is still standing he and my aunt have made their transitions but still standing is that Black Pot Belly stove in the family and our family has their own Cemetery that is how large our Roquemore family tree is. I have also migrated here from California and have been living here for 6 years. I grew up with Dale Evans and Roy Rogers singing about the stars at night are big and bright and I totally agree I fell in love with the Stars they are like a blanket of diamonds in the sky I could not believe it! I was like a kid at Disney Land it is so beautiful here. The only place I saw stars like here was at the Griffith Park Observatory. And trees oh my Gosh everyone in Texas should have oxygen plus since trees give us oxygen. I am rejuvenated with my family I enjoy family reunions more than I ever have, the reunions take exhilaration to another level, everyone is so gifted with bringing new life and energy into each year of coming together. I always wanted a sister and my cousins we look so alike, I call them my twin sisters.

   African Americans have historically celebrated several different days that mark the end of slavery, Juneteenth has become the prominent holiday in the modern period, where before some wanted to forget the pain of the past. The festivities are celebrated on the third Saturday in the month of June, and include prayer and praise, historical remembrances and sometimes African influenced music and dance, a part of “re-memory” of the time during slavery when the culture of Africa influenced American culture across the nation. As a main character in Ralph Ellison’s posthumously released novel, Juneteenth (1999) says: “Remembering helps us to save ourselves.”

   Acres Homes resurrected the Juneteenth Parade along with Sylvester Turner Houston’s Mayor and is celebrated a week long and is called Houston Juneteenth Emancipation Celebration or Juneteenth Fest! Look on the Google or Yahoo to get current update of all the festivities for this year.       

   Our community in DeKalb, Texas will be celebrating Juneteenth Day on the 16^th of June, with a fantastic parade, plenty of food and games, and anyone that knows anything about Texas we here in the state do it BIG!

   In 1872 Baptist Minister Jack Yates and others led a fund-raising effort to purchase land where black people could go as a place of peaceful recreation. The site named Emancipation Park with an Emancipation Community Center is in Houston, Texas in the Third Ward area and is the oldest park in Houston, Texas. It was designed by William Ward Watkin. Juneteenth became an official state holiday on January 1, 1980. It’s a day to celebrate African American Freedom and achievement while encouraging self-development and respect for all cultures.

   Illumination dissolves all material ties and binds men together with the golden chains of spiritual understanding; it acknowledges only the leadership of the Christ; it has no ritual or rule but the divine, impersonal universal Love; no other worship than the inner Flame that is ever lit at the shrine of Spirit. This union is the free state of spiritual brotherhood. The only restraint is the discipline of Soul; therefore, we know liberty without license; we are a united universe without physical limits, a divine service to God without ceremony or creed. The illumined walk without fear-by Grace.”

                                                                        The Infinite Way by Joel Goldsmith         

   I am thankful for this opportunity to share, and pour into others the golden nuggets of faith, wisdom, strength and love of a people coming together with evidence, the world can be a better place. “Motivate, stimulate, educate, each one, reach one, and teach one” to love and respect for all people.  This was a report with some para phrases reported by Patricia Pine, “Juneteenth...”

Bibliography

Abernathy, Francis E., ed. Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore. Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1996. Abernathy introduces the history and meaning of Juneteenth in the memory of Texans. Other scholars contribute articles describing present=day practices and festivities.

Kachun, Mitch. Festivals of Freedom: Memory and Meaning I African American Emancipation Celebrations, 1808-1915. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003. Sets the history of Juneteenth within the earlier African American emancipation celebrations of the nineteenth century.

Library of Congress. American Memory: Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html. This searchable Web-based resource contains over two thousand digitized first-person accounts of formerly enslaved Americans. Several accounts relate stories of freedom celebrations. Felix Haywood’s interview is in Texas Narratives, vol. 16, part2, of the Works Progress Administration Slave Narratives.

Morehouse, Maggi M. “Juneteenth Celebration: A Festival of Freedom.” Aiken Standard, 2 June 2005, sec. A, p.11. A short history of Juneteenth and a call for local townspeople to join the celebration.

Taylor, Charles A. Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom. Greensboro, N.C..: Open Hand Publishing, 2002. A text for young adults explaining why Juneteenth is celebrated in the African American community.

Wiggins, William H., Jr. O Freedom! Afro-American Emancipation Celebrations.  Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1987. Written by the preeminent folklorist of Juneteenth, this text places the holiday within the context of other African American celebrations. Maggi M. Morehouse

From the Infinite Way - Illumination – by Joel S. Goldsmith

Crossroads ABC13 television station – interviewing Melanie Lawson an Archivist and Oral Historian speaking about why it is important for oracle records, making a Living History.

Information also from ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY VOL.3

Other information on Juneteenth is from websites Google.com, and Yahoo.com.

Acknowledgments 

Report Date: June 14, 2018