Detroit (AP) — Americans across the country celebrated Juneteenth this weekend, marking the relatively new national holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings to commemorate the end of slavery after the Civil War.
While many have treated the long holiday weekend as a reason to party, others urged a quiet reflection on America’s often violent and oppressive treatment of its black citizens. And still others have commented on the strangeness of celebrating a federal holiday marking the end of slavery in the nation while many Americans are trying to prevent parts of that history from being taught in public schools.
“Is #June the only federal holiday that some states have banned from teaching its history and meaning? Author Michelle Duster asked on Twitter this weekend, referring to measures in Florida, Oklahoma and Alabama that prohibit an Advanced Placement African-American studies course or the teaching of certain concepts of race and racism.
The federal holiday Monday commemorates the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the bloody Civil War.
On the weekend of June 19, a Roman Catholic church in Detroit dedicated its service to urging parishioners to delve into the lessons of the holiday.
“To have justice we must work for peace. And to have peace we must work for justice,” John Thorne, executive director of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, told the Gesu Catholic Church congregation in Detroit.
Standing in front of paintings of a black Jesus and Mary, Thorne said Juneteenth is a day of celebration, but it also “has to be so much more.”
It was important to talk about Juneteenth during Sunday Mass, the Rev. Lorn Snow told a reporter as the service drew to a close.
“The fight is not over yet. There is a lot of work to be done,” she said.
Most African Americans agree, according to a recent poll. 70% of black adults consulted in an AP-NORC poll He said “a lot” needs to be done to achieve equal treatment for African-Americans in the police force. And African Americans suffer from significantly worse health outcomes than their white peers through a variety of measures, including rates of maternal mortality, asthma, high blood pressure, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Although celebrations of the end of slavery are new in many parts of the country, in Memphis, where the slave trade once flourished, the June 16 holiday has been celebrated long before it became a designated federal holiday. in 2021. The Tennessee Legislature passed a bill earlier this year making it a state holiday as well.
Festivities there include a multi-day festival that includes food, music, arts and crafts, and cultural exhibits in a tree-lined park in the city’s medical district. The Memphis park once contained an equestrian statue and the grave of slave trader and Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest. The statue and body were moved in recent years.
Memphis is home to the National Civil Rights Museum located on the site of the former Lorraine Motel, the former black-owned hotel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968. The museum offers free admission on Monday to mark the holiday . At the museum, visitors can listen to recorded speeches by civil rights leaders like King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers, and others.
Ryan Jones, the museum’s associate curator, said June 16 should be celebrated in the US with the same emphasis that July 4 receives as Independence Day.
“It is the independence of a people who were forced to endure oppression and discrimination because of the color of their skin,” Jones said.
The June 16 holiday, Jones said, should also be seen as more than just a day when people attend parties and cookouts. In fact, he said, it is a time to reflect on the past.
“It recognizes the sacrifices of early civil rights veterans between World War I and World War II and of course in modern society, protests, demonstrations, nonviolence, marches,” Jones said.
When Americans gathered to mark the holiday, it was not without incident. In a Chicago suburb on Saturday night, one person died and 22 were injured in a shooting that is still being investigated Sunday by police. A witness said the party in a Willowbrook, Illinois shopping mall parking lot was a June 16 celebration.
The White House released a statement Sunday afternoon, saying: “The President and First Lady are thinking about those killed and injured in the shooting in Illinois last night. We have reached out to offer assistance to state and local leaders in the wake of this tragedy at a Juneteenth community celebration.”
The holiday celebration continues Monday with an appearance by Vice President Kamala Harris on a CNN special with musical guests including Miguel and Charlie Wilson.
Schools and federal buildings will be closed Monday.
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