Community College Black Student Union in 2011, and
has been hosted by the Eugene-Springfield NAACP to
recognize the link between the fight for liberty and the
story of the African American community.
“The black community is not monolithic,”
Richardson says of not only celebrations of
Juneteenth but of African American culture
and history.
“As a national identity and a people, there
are few things that bind African Americans
together. There are black churches and
historically black colleges,” Richardson
says, but even those create smaller
communities.
There are also national groups such
as the NAACP and Urban League,
but, he says, “there is no canon of
black experience.”
Richardson says, for one
thing, “we need to do better in
our educational system, not to
whitewash it, so to speak.” He adds
that “black folks have kept up a
traditional, rural holiday and kept it
alive,” and not because the educational
system has done anything to aid in that.
He points to the work of the Black Student
Task Force at the University of Oregon as an
example of changes slowly being made. As a
result of their work, Deady Hall on campus
was de-named after the task force demanded
they “change the names of all of the KKK-
related buildings on campus.” The UO is also
building a new Black Cultural Center.
The local NAACP has its offices in the
Historic Mims House on High Street. The house
was purchased in 1948 by C.B. and Annie Mims.
The Mims were the first African Americans to
own a home in Eugene, and Richardson says
they came to Oregon from Texas and likely were
familiar with Juneteenth.
And while Juneteenth and other key parts of
African American history have been maintained in oral
tradition, one thing the NAACP has done at the Mims
House is set some African American history down in
stone with markers and plaques commemorating
the Mims and other key black figures. Richardson
points out that in Egypt and around the rest of
Africa, black people have been writing in stone
since the time of the pyramids.
THE PAGEANT
Asked by the pageant what she would do
if she were president of the U.S., Aceia
says she would improve schools and
the lives of people in low-income
neighborhoods.
One thing she would like to see
the Miss Juneteenth pageant do is
develop a boys’ pageant as well. She
would like to see black men get more
positive attention.
“Being a black man in the U.S. is,
like, the scariest thing,” she says.
These are points that Richard-
son makes, too: “Folks yearn for
positive images,” he says.
He adds that those who
talk about the poor, the
houseless and the jobless in
terms of “the bottom line” are
“an affront.” That is how slave
owners — monsters who bought
and sold people — thought of those
they enslaved, he says: “Never more
than the profit margin.”
But he says the current tense
atmosphere in the U.S. has some
hope. “It’s actually a reaction to
great promise actually coming to
fruition: multiculturalism, diversity,
nonviolence, civility,” Richardson says. “All the things
everyday people embrace and enjoy.”
And those who embrace racism are “fighting against
natural progress.”
Pageant organizer Chambers says that, through her
Miss Juneteenth title, Aceia and other participants can
talk about “school and race and how that makes them
feel,” along with getting mentoring and encouragement
“through a culturally specific lens.”
Chambers says the girls get together on weekends
for at least six weeks and that “black and brown girls
can come together and talk about things that might
never surface.” As Miss Juneteenth, Aceia will do public
speaking and community service.
Aceia brings up an experience she had at Churchill
High School in Eugene where another student threw
a glue stick at her in science class. She had spoken up
when he grabbed it from the kit she and the only other
African American student in the class were using.
When Aceia complained to the school, and asked for an
apology, she was told she was over-exaggerating, she says.
“I don’t feel like I should have to, but if I have to I
will,” she says of dealing with racist incidents and “little
remarks” that get made.
Like Chambers, Aceia says Miss Juneteenth is
something more than a mere pageant — it creates a
sisterhood. Aceia says when people in school ask her
“what is that?” she now has a “bigger voice” to talk
about Juneteeth and African American history.
Oregon became the 18th state to recognize
Juneteenth in 2001 through a legislative resolution by
then-state Sen. Avel Louise Gordley, the first African
American woman to be elected to Oregon’s state Senate.
Hawaii, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana
have yet to recognize Juneteenth, and the National
Juneteenth Observance Foundation has been trying for
years to get Juneteenth recognized at a national level. ■
For more information on Oregon’s annual Juneteenth
celebration, go to JuneteenthOr.com. For the pageant, check out
MissJuneteenthOr.org and for more on the Eugene-Springfield
NAACP go to NAACPLaneCounty.org.
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