WHAT IF YOU'VE NEVER CELEBRATED JUNETEENTH?Īnderson, 57, of Columbia, Maryland, never did anything on Juneteenth in his youth. What I want to do is give everyday people a choice.” “I don’t want to make people feel guilty about that. King, I’ll watch what’s on the television, and I’m gonna rest,’” Anderson said. There are a lot of other people who are just ‘I appreciate Dr. “Just like the Martin Luther King holiday, we say it’s a day of service and a lot of people will do things. David Anderson, a Black pastor and CEO of Gracism Global, a consulting firm helping leaders navigate conversations bridging divides across race and culture. The important thing is to make people feel they have options on how to observe the occasion, said Dr. That can mean doing community service, attending an education panel or taking time off. Others may choose to treat Juneteenth as a day of rest and remembrance. But, there was so many beautiful activities.” And it was about freedom because what we understood is that we were emancipated from slavery. “It’s where I began to really see Black unity because I realized that that was the one day that African Americans considered ours,” Freeman said. You could go to anyone’s house and be welcomed to join in the feast, which could include grilled chicken and beef and other regional cuisines - jerk meats, fried fish, Jamaican plantains. A comedian who is producing Galveston’s first ever Juneteenth Comedy Festival on Saturday, he has vivid memories of smoke permeating his entire neighborhood because so many people were using their barbecue pits for celebratory cookouts. The gatherings were especially revolutionary because they were free of restrictive measures, known as “Black Codes,” enforced in Confederate states, controlling whether liberated slaves could vote, buy property, gather for worship and other aspects of daily life.Īlan Freeman, 60, grew up celebrating Juneteenth every year in Houston, 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Galveston. In the beginnings of the holiday celebrated as Black Americans' true Independence Day, the outdoors allowed for large, raucous reunions among formerly enslaved family, many of whom had been separated. Juneteenth festivities are rooted in cookouts and barbecues. IS JUNETEENTH A SOLEMN DAY OF REMEMBRANCE OR MORE OF A PARTY?
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