Juneteenth is celebrated, remembered

By Stephanie Harp

“When I was a kid, I loved Juneteenth … barbecue, soda, breaking bread, playing,” said Joseph Jackson, Director of Leadership Development at Maine Inside Out, one of many organizations hosting Juneteenth celebrations around Maine that resurrect some of those traditions, including food, family games, and sharing music and art.

In his first year at the transformative justice organization, Jackson – who also is Executive Director of Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and Campaign Advisor of Maine Youth Justice – told MIO that he wasn’t working on Juneteenth. “So I began to explain, not only the legacy of it but how it impacted me as a Black man in Maine,” he said. “I’m from Texas. … Every year of my life, it was something that my family celebrated. It wasn’t until I entered college that I began to see some connections … and my family’s legacy to slavery and plantation work.” The mantra of this year’s MIO event was “A Change We’re Waiting For.” In 2022, it was “Juneteenth Ain’t Enough.” These prompts are intentional, Jackson said. “Juneteenth should be recognized by African Americans and others.” 

Since 1865

The name of the holiday combines “June” and “Nineteenth,” commemorating June 19, 1865, when federal troops reached Galveston, Texas, and the enslaved people there finally heard, more than two years late, that President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had declared the end of their bondage as of January 1, 1863. 

Musician, photographer, music producer, and writer Jerry Edwards, aka Genius Black, prefers to focus on the people rather than the government’s action. “I think one of the most important things to know and to feel about Juneteenth is that it is a celebration of becoming free. And of jubilation. … The people who first did Juneteenth – which is also called Jubilee Day, Freedom Day – were Black people and their lens wasn’t a governmental lens. Their lens was their joy and their actual jubilation, and commemorating and celebrating it.” When the news reached those who were enslaved, he said, “the feeling that it gave people, the scale, was the feeling of jubilee. … What pushes the emotions and realities to that level is when you are getting over long-winded injustice and enslavement.” 

Black is creator and host of “Maine’s Black Future,” a podcast featuring African American individuals in Maine history and interviews with present-day changemakers. Also from Texas, Black remembers celebrating Juneteenth as a child. “People from Texas, we look for reasons to rock the barbecue – full cookout or super basic, just me and my brother and my mama, on our back porch.” But his favorite memory of Juneteenth was speaking at the South Portland event in 2021, the year President Joe Biden declared it a federal holiday, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing protests. “There was an alchemical shift in 2020,” he said. 

Progress in Maine

“Juneteenth … acknowledges the harm that has been done and it also celebrates the progress that has been achieved among the African American community … despite the systemic inequities that have held the African American community down for generations,” said Angela Okafor, Director of Community Engagement with the Permanent Commission on the Status of Racial, Indigenous and Tribal Populations. An attorney and business owner originally from Nigeria, in 2019 Okafor became the first person of color elected to the Bangor City Council. The Permanent Commission is a collaborating partner for the “State of Black Maine Symposium” at University of Southern Maine on June 19, organized by Maine Black Community Development.  

“Are things close to where they should be at this point? Of course not,” she said. “[But] I’m proud of our great state because I believe in progress, being on the move, putting one step in front of the other. … It was our state legislature that passed the law to establish [the Permanent Commission] to look into these systems and find disparities that exist and find ways to dismantle them … and with funding to actually do the job.” She feels honored to be working with the Commission, she said, “so that everyone who lives in Maine will have a fair opportunity for a good income in life, irrespective of the color of their skin or where they come from.” 

Former Lewiston City Councilor Safiya Khalid is Founder and Co-Director of the Community Organizing Alliance, the sponsor of “Juneteenth Freedom: Honoring Resilience” on June 20 in Lewiston. A graduate of Lewiston High School and University of Southern Maine, Khalid came to the U.S. from Somalia with her family as a child, and didn’t really learn about Juneteenth, she said, until 2021. “Of course it signifies the day the slaves were freed, but for me personally, it highlights Black resilience and bravery and really the strength that they have to continuously overcome barriers, both systemically and institutionally.”  

Jackson, of Maine Inside Out, said, “I’m glad we have our first Black Speaker of the House. I think that’s monumental. Our first Black state senator. A Black person sitting on the judicial court.” He was referring to Rep. Rachel Talbot Ross (D-Dist. 118), Sen. Craig Hickman (D-Dist. 14), and Associate Justice Rick Lawrence. “These are milestones we shouldn’t take for granted and overlook because they signify a giant step,” he said.

The 130th Maine Legislature passed “LD 183, An Act To Establish Juneteenth as a Paid State Holiday,” sponsored by Talbot Ross, who is Co-Chair of the Permanent Commission. In a 2023 statement, she said, “Juneteenth … marks our country’s second independence day. For enslaved people, freedom and justice were delayed for far too long and we must reflect on that resulting grievous and ongoing legacy. On Juneteenth, we must recognize the progress we’ve made and recommit ourselves to our shared work to ensure racial justice, equity, and equality in Maine and America.”

Work remains

Juneteenth’s celebratory mood is mixed with sadness, in recognition of the horrors of this country’s racist history and how much more is needed to achieve equity and justice. As a child, Jackson said, “I didn’t understand that there should be some somberness about it. … If Juneteenth says anything, it’s the fact that people were [forced] to continue to perform free labor for another two years without compensation, and the fact that there’s a clause in our 13th Amendment that exempts slavery in cases when people commit a felony. And the fact that even now, today, the folks that we incarcerate are forced to work for free. … So until there’s a complete eradication of slavery in our country, we’re going to call it out when we see it.”

An example was the long delay between the Emancipation Proclamation and the news spreading to every one of the people who were enslaved. “When you think about the actual communication of becoming free – across land – a lot of the story has to do with communications,” said Genius Black. “It took a long time. … Some of the slave owners knew that there was freedom, but they suppressed that knowledge. They didn’t want it to become well-known because, of course, it changed their lives.” 

Many think of Maine as a state that championed freedom because it was a free state long before the Emancipation Proclamation, because of the state’s role in the Underground Railroad that helped enslaved people escape bondage, and because Brewer’s Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain played a significant Union role in the Civil War. “But many practices link Maine to slavery,” Jackson said. Textile mills bought cotton directly from the South, a number of ships that participated in the transatlantic slave trade were built or based here, and Maine entered the Union in the first place as a free state along with a slave state via the 1820 Missouri Compromise. 

Maine’s Black population

Genius Black noted that people often think of Maine’s Black population as a single group, due in part to the small total percentage of Black residents. “The fact is that there are a whole lot of Black people who are newer to the state of Maine. … There are also Black people who have been in Maine for 10 and 20 years, and 100s of years, who also have a reality that surrounds their existence. As Black people, we don’t have to choose which reality to claim. On Juneteenth, I think all those realities deserve to be seen and recognized. But do not conflate all of those realities as the same thing. … Black people’s presence in Maine is multifaceted and nuanced and old.” 

Jackson said, “Those of us who have been born in this country, who are Black, we have the experience of the history of racism. [New arrivals are] being exposed to racism that they’ve never experienced. I think the way you address that is by bridging and being in relationship. I have strong connections in the immigrant community and I can share my stories. I think a lot of ways the information is disseminated is through the telling of stories.” Jackson is a published poet, among his many talents. 

“Within the Black community there are so many factions,” said Okafor, of the Permanent Commission. “Even in this state, when people talk about Black people, they think immigrants.” But not even all immigrants are here for the same reasons. Okafor herself came “seeking greener pastures,” she said, while many are refugees and asylum seekers. “I think Juneteenth acknowledges the harm and centuries-old injustice that the enslaved Africans were met with, and which has continued to hold down their descendants,” she said. “But also this systemic racism – disparities –  has affected recently arrived African Americans who are new to the state, but who also have contributed a lot to our state, economically and otherwise.” 

While Black, Jackson, Khalid, and Okafor all agreed that Juneteenth should be celebrated by everyone, whether their ancestors were enslaved or not, Black also wants people to ask why the original Juneteenth happened the way it did. “And what are other examples [of racism] that, even when the law changes … that continue to keep appearing?” he said. 

Jackson pointed to the criminal justice system, with its disproportionate impact on people of color, along with poverty that is propped up by what he labeled “structural components.”

Celebrate now, plan the future

Maine’s Juneteenth events include recognition of the considerable equity work that lies ahead, a core mission of many of the participating organizations. And every gathering includes celebration – jubilation – about the holiday. Many provide food, games, and entertainment. 

In Texas and elsewhere, Juneteenth sodas and juices were always red, both Jackson and Black said. In fact, the tradition of red Juneteenth foods, especially drinks, likely has ties to Central and West Africa. According to culinary historian Michael Twitty, “The practice of eating red foods – red cake, barbecue, punch and fruit – may owe its existence to the enslaved Yoruba and Kongo brought to Texas in the 19th century. For both of these cultures the color red is the embodiment of spiritual power and transformation.” 

With red infusing the American holiday with African traditions, everyone can celebrate Juneteenth, regardless of how they came to live in Maine or who their ancestors were. 

Amjambo wishes all readers a happy Juneteenth.