The New York Times has a whole suite of materials today celebrating Juneteenth.
One article is an interview with 93 year old Opal Lee, the leader of a campaign to make Juneteenth a national holiday. Lee was a twelve year old girl in Fort Worth, Texas when a white mob burned down her home. At the age of 89 she walked from Texas to Washington to bring attention to her cause. From the interview:
What is your first memory of celebrating Juneteenth?
It was in Marshall, Texas, where I was born. We’d go to the fairgrounds to celebrate. It was like going to Christmas or Thanksgiving, we had such a good time.
Some people still compare Independence Day to Juneteenth. How would you explain the type of freedom and community that comes from celebrating Juneteenth?
The difference between Juneteenth and the 4th of July? Woo, girl! The fact is none of us are free till we’re all free. Knowing that slaves didn’t get the word for two and a half years after the emancipation, can’t you imagine how those people felt? They’d been watching — that’s what they call Watch Night services — every New Year’s, thinking freedom was coming. And then to find out they were free, even two and a half years after everybody else.
So, the 4th of July? Slaves weren’t free. You know that, don’t you? And so we just celebrate the hell out of the 4th of July, so I suggest that if we’re going to do some celebrating of freedom, that we have our festival, our educational components, our music, from June the 19 — Juneteenth — to the 4th of July. Now that would be celebrating freedom.
A second article looks at how we celebrate Juneteenth:
For some, it’s eating barbecue, shooting fireworks, gathering at a cookout and sipping on red drinks, a tradition that symbolizes perseverance and honors the blood that was shed by African-Americans. For others, it’s shopping only at black-owned businesses, sharing history or resting at home. This year, some will gather online for live video chats, which has become a norm in the new coronavirus pandemic.
If you ask Attica Locke, a Houston-born, Los Angeles-based author and television writer, she’d tell you that she’s the child of the single greatest smoker in all of Texas history — her father. His grilled meats were central to her family’s Juneteenth.
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