Eugene joined nationwide Juneteenth observations on Friday. An event hosted by the organization Black Unity saw hundreds of attendees who celebrated and learned about the holiday through, speakers, music, art, and food.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day news of tthe Emancipation Proclamation was delivered to Galveston, Texas. The announcement was given by a Union General nearly two and a half years after the initial signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Black communities nationwide have celebrated Juneteenth for more than a hundred years since then.
Recently, the holiday has garnered increased support as the country grapples with both historical and present day racism toward Black people.
While Juneteenth is widely celebrated, it is not yet federally recognized and only a handful of states observe the day on official calendars. But that’s changing, and momentum for official recognition at all levels pf government is building.
At a Eugene Juneteenth celebration at Skinner Butte Park, Ashley Terrell said increased interest in observing the holiday has been a longtime coming.
“For me the 4th of July has felt false, we weren’t free,” she said. Many Black people celebrate Juneteenth in lieu of the the 4th of July holiday, also known as Independence Day.
“A lot of slaves fought for the Revolution in the 1770’s with the hope, with the expectation, that the promises of America would also be theirs and it wasn’t,” she said.
Terrell and her friend, Sydney Sampson, are both University of Oregon students. They came out to celebrate the day and plan to attend more Juneteenth events on Saturday.
“I feel this is the holiday where America began to fulfil the promises it had to every person who lives here,” Terrell said.
Both Terrell and Sampson painted the silhouette of a Black woman with an afro sitting on the letter ‘L.’ The painting was part of a string of letters painted on top of boards that all together spelled out: “BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL.”
“I thought it would be really cool, we added some colors and some flowers into her fro and from there we just decided we would do a vine going down her spine, and we’re working on doing some roots at the very bottom, so it’s like about the growth of a Black woman,” Sampson said.
The art piece was one of several activities planned at the Juneteenth event. There here were at least 200 people scattered around the park on Friday afternoon, with hundreds more attending before the event ended at 9 p.m.
This year Juneteenth saw increased visibility in Eugene, as Black Unity’s event was only one of several events planned around the holiday. Asked about what continued support from non-Black people should look like, Sampson answered:
“In a couple of months, when this has died down…once it’s not on the front page of the news every single night, to still be doing the work, to still be educating yourself, not to go back to all of the old ways of just the condescension, and the racism, and the internalized-racism, and to continue educating yourself long after the hashtags aren’t trending anymore.”
Terrell gave a similar answer and said with people having more time on their hands, because of the coronavirus, there’s hope the Black Lives Matter movement will last.
“I think that this sort of thing could sustain itself, I feel like enough people have the free time to protest every single day, so I see this being the one that makes some substantial changes in the U.S.,” Tarrell said.
Black Unity organizer Isiah Wagoner said the event was planned in a matter of days, and next year they're going to make event even bigger.
Another Juneteenth event hosted by BLAC: Black Led Action Coalition is scheduled for Saturday at Alton Baker Park beginning at 12 p.m.
