Juneteenth Day
Celebration cancellations are starting to add up to quite possibly equal no
Juneteenth Celebrations this summer, nationwide, due to Covid-19 concerns. To
help prevent the spread of the coronavirus most state governors are asking
Juneteenth organizers and others not to hold events for large gatherings of
people. The African American community is being hit disproportionately hard by
this virus with no vaccine. As a result of all the above, I have been watching
Juneteenth celebration plans all over the country dissolve into cancelation after cancelation for summer
2020.
In fact, as I write
this post, the African American Family Reunion Committee in Vallejo-California
and the NAACP's Jamestown Branch has just added their names to the list of
organizations canceling their Juneteenth Day Celebration for this year.
Whether a vaccine is created for the coronavirus or the new normal with regard
to public gatherings stays in place I am hoping that the Juneteenth celebration
will make its appearance in 2021 and continue on from there. For those of you who follow me on my Juneteenth website and FB location you know I celebrate Juneteenth all year round when it comes to sharing Juneteenth information.
June 19, 1865, and
the celebration that grew into the oldest African American celebration in the
U.S. "Juneteenth" should always be remembered even if it can't be
celebrated in groups of more than ten. Juneteenth is all about family because
after that date (in 1865) African American families separated by slavery at
least had the chance to keep their immediate family together, and though it would not always be possible or in some cases desirable, begin putting their separated families back together.
Because back in the years' BC (Before Cable television) when there were no cellphones, tablets,
televisions, or radios family time was often used for sharing meals and sharing
stories. It didn't matter whether or not you could read when it came to the old African tradition of storytelling. The story of Juneteenth deserves to be
passed down and passed on with or without becoming an official holiday.
Information is so
readily available nowadays that I sometimes see my kids on their cellphone
fact-checking someone in the middle of a conversation. Trying to imagine what
it would be like without all of today's technology can be both sobering and
kind of scary. But what if, for some reason, all of the technology we depend on
today blinked out? No desktop, no laptop, no tablet, or cellphone service.
Information about
the Emancipation Proclamation, and the end of slavery, should be passed from
one generation to the next in honor of all those (black and white) who resisted
slavery and fought to end slavery but didn't live long enough to see that dream, the abolishment of slavery, come true. From a member of the African American Juneteenth Celebrating
communities, (me) I hope that the entertainment and activity associated with
the oldest African American Celebration (Juneteenth) in this country will be
back next year so that organizations like the African Family Reunion Committee,
in Solano California the NAACP Jamestown Branch and all the other Juneteenth
Celebration organizations taking a knee for the community in 2020 will be back
in force next June.
I plan to still
share Juneteenth related information on my Juneteenth website, and Facebook
locations. A shout out to those in Rochester N.Y. area and the organizers of the virtual Juneteenth 5K
Run and Walk, registration is still open through June 19, 2020. For those who register for a $10.00 donation you will receive a poster honoring Harriet Tubman, "Keep
Going" by local artist Amber Stokes, and your donation will support the
construction of the Rochester Civil Rights Heritage Park site at Baden Park.
June 19, 2020, public celebration or not, if you would like to join me in a quiet celebration dedicated to the memory of slavery and Emancipation my thoughts will be with yours on that date. Juneteenth around the nation, and in some cases the world, I was once contacted by a Juneteenth organization from Germany. Anyway, in places Juneteenth is celebrated with a day, a week, even an entire month, and even though it's still not easy for many Americans to accept the truth about the past or to understand the dignity that the Juneteenth celebration brings to the African Americans community, the celebration of this rich history still grows a little bigger each year.
