Juneteenth Cancellation

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.