Current Juneteenth commemorations reflect how people celebrated 151 years ago when the last slaves in America were freed.
“The music started and they started cooking and barbecuing,” said the Rev. Marva Edwards, president of the Vancouver chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Juneteenth gets its name from “June 19th,” the date in 1865 that Union Gen. Gordon Granger freed the last slaves. That was 2 1/2 years after President Abraham Lincoln had freed slaves throughout the Confederacy with his Emancipation Proclamation. It was also months after the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution banned slavery throughout the nation.
But Texas refused to comply with the ban until Granger showed up, backed by 1,800 federal troops. That makes June 19, 1865, the real end of slavery in America, according to Edwards.
If You Go
• What: Juneteenth celebration.
• When: 1 to 6 p.m. June 23.
• Where: Foster and Hanna Hall, Clark College, 1933 Fort Vancouver Way, Vancouver.
She said during those initial celebrations in the South, people were focused on reuniting with loved ones and figuring out who was still alive. Saturday’s local event at the Marshall Center will be “a coming together of people in the community,” Edwards said.
Forty-five states have adopted Juneteenth as a state holiday. Texas was the first, in 1980. Washington made it an observance in 2007. There is an effort to make Juneteenth — also known as Juneteenth Independence Day, Freedom Day and Emancipation Day — a national holiday. When Edwards was a child living in Indiana in the 1950s, if Juneteenth fell on a weekday she didn’t go to school.
Vancouver’s celebration at the Marshall Community Center and park kicks off at 11 a.m. with a showing of Beyonc?’s “Lemonade” video and a community discussion. There will be music, poetry recitals, dance performances and a sweet potato pie contest, as well as vendors selling food and goods.
Carol Collier, treasurer of the local NAACP and one of the event’s organizers, said the group will present a piece of artwork to the city of Vancouver.
The local NAACP will have a booth and people can sign up for memberships. The Vancouver branch was chartered in 1945; the national association is 107 years old, making it the country’s oldest civil rights organization.
