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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (June 24, 1992)
.* . ' ’ . ■ .* f *»" ? ? r-î v *^ Mr Ur E ugen 9740: $wriefa&n/Ji Sc h o e n - H L ^Sp. o f Or Or e g o n Pßfajyh M n u fiean Pj/MMtitMWi t:. lu iu 24, 1992 The Eyes and Ears of the Community" V o lu m n XXII, N u m b er 2 6 ®f£ ^flnrt lanh ODb^eruer Juneteenth "92 ^ïE fltÿ, •t V *• - I* 25« ••6 A ' 99 A Community Celebration Glam Peoples Gommunity Gave organized the this years traditional Juneteenth celebration. O ther particapating organizations were, Ghildrens Services (Division, Emmanuel Hospital, JBethal J W IE Ghurch, O&1H1 Sentry llhwket ?<•/-.* y? Ht. .•vr/*./•■ 5; r>. .» 1 I»*'’ ,•«' Clara Peoples '.*• - - • . 'i r > • - ’ ï • . .■»«.'it' :'.k • W S& j • > Z fix: U K W Community Care and Bethel Church Volunteers Emanuel Hospital Community Care and Bethel Church Volunteers i Juneteenth Celebration! Juneteenth In The South And West June 19,1865, was freedom day for slaves in east Texas and portions of the surrounding states. It was on this day that G eneral G ordon G ranger landed with federal troops in G alveston, Texas, with the expressed mission o f forcing the slave ow ners to release their slaves. M any o f these slaves had been brought to east Texas from other southern states, such as Tennessee, G eorgia, Virginia and “all over the south” by slave owners “because the abolitionist had talked free dom for the Negroes, and they were afraid that their slaves w ould be freed and all that investment that they had [made]....” [Legends of three types] soon aroseexplaining the date o f the celebra tion.... (1) the news w ithheld to make one last crop, (2) the news delayed by mule travel, and (3) the news delayed by the m urder o f the messenger. The m ost frequendy collected leg end was the one which explains the date in light o f the m aster’s need to make one more crop. Versions o f it were used to explain the observance in east Texas and southwestern Arkansas. Although none o f the informants told the legend o f the slain messenger, there were several versions of the mule legend collected. The most stylized ac count was included in a letter sent by Haywood Hy gh, Jr., a high school teacher in Com pton, California, who attended Juneteenth celebrations as a lad in K am ack, Texas. He wrote: One [story] is of param ount impor tance to us. How Juneteenth got started. The story is legendary in nature. How ever, my cighly-six year old father swears that it is the truth; that an ex- Union soldier (Negro) rode a mule from W ashington, with a message given him by Abe Lincoln, Ycssuh, all the way to this section o f the country. And when he gottoO klahom a, he informed the slaves that they w ere free. From there he w ent to Arkansas [sic] and Texas. It was the nineteenth o f June when her arrived in Oklahoma. My father swears it, and he says if his father was still alive, he would do the same swearing without batting his eyes. Many o f the old-timers are with him one hundred percent. Only two informants indicated that they knew the m ule legend. A rtis Lovelady said he had heard it, but con fessed that “I don’t know the whole story.” Juneteenth was also originally cel ebrated in Louisiana. Rupert Secrett, retired barber and former sponsor of the celebration in Brenham, Texas, m en tioned friendly “ hurrahing” am ong blacks o f Louisiana and Texas as to which stale was the First to celebrate em ancipation. Louisiana blacks often said: “The people in Texas didn’t know they was free until the people from Louisiana cam e over and told’cm .” David Johnson, Dean o f Students at Texas College, Tyler, Texas, and a native o f Louisiana, recalls the celebra tion being observed “ ...all over the state o f Louisiana.” He specifically recalled the celebration being strong around the New O rleans area, the city from which General Granger began his historic voy age to G alveston. And U.T.D. W il liams, Steward in the Ebenzer AME C h u rc h , T y le r , T e x a s , a tte n d e d Juneteenth celebrations in the north western town of Grand Bayou, Louisi ana, where “the white folks” furnished all the food. Southwestern Arkansas was another area of an adjoining slate into which the Juneteenth celebration spilled over. This southwestern area o f Arkansas, like the adjoining east Texas, is heavily popu lated with blacks. M rs. E.B. Tollette lived in the all-N egro town o f Tollette in this rural southwestern section o f the state. Tollette, A rkansas, “was a large com m unity" o f “farm ers” and “home ow ners.” She also recalled, with pride, that it also had its own post office. The black farmers in Blevins, Paraloma, Nashville, Tollette, etc. “had great big picnics on the 19th o f June.”... In the late 1800’s many ex-slaves began to migrate the tri-state area into the terri to ry w h ic h w as to b e c o m e Oklahoma...and took theirprecious free dom festival with them . Like the blacks who would take part in the great north ern migration o f the early 1900’sth eex - slaves who took part in this westward movement o f the 1880’s were close enough to the end o f physical slavery to still have a deep appreciation for the day which signaled its end. Therefore, throughout O klahom a, especially the newly formed all-black com m unities, they transplanted their Juneteenth cel ebrations. Mrs Lillian Crisp, a public school teacher in Ardm ore, Oklahoma, taught in the all-black O klahom a town o f Tatums and recalled Juneteenth b e ing an all-day celebration o f picnics, baseball gam es, occasional political speeches, square dancing and general socializing. There was a second m igration o f blacks from the southwestern states o f Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas and O kla homa in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. This time the move was further west to California, with the m ajor attraction being good paying jobs in the war in dustries of the Golden State. So many blacks left the peonage o f east Texas sharecropping, the unfulfilled promise of O klahom a’s all-black com m unities, and the rigid segregation patterns o f Arkansas and Louisiana and headed west to California in search o f a better life. However, the Juneteenth celebra tion was one o f the cultural casualties o f this migration. The generation of blacks who made this trip were some seventy odd years removed from June 19,1865, that day o f days when their ancestors became free men. These west coast offspring still honored Juneteenth, but not in a man ner that would rival their forefathers. In California there were attempts to trans plant the tradition once again, but the celebration had dwindled in scope to Juneteenth picnics sponsored by blacks from the same state, for example, an “Oklahom a Picnic” is held in Los An geles’ Lincoln Heights Park every June 19th. However, the biggest change in Juneteenth observances by blacks on the west coast has been homecoming. Like the swallows o f Capistrano, each year many o f them migrate back home on the weekend nearest the 19th o f June. At the 1972 celebration in the all black com m unityof Branchville, Texas, blacks came back from Kansas, Mis souri and California. Juneteenth has also been celebrated in isolated areas o f Alabama and Florida. Mrs. Minnie Lee Riley, an old member of Miles Chapel AME Church, Little Rock, Arkansas, to ld , a fte r c h u rc h s e rv ic e s , how Juneteenth was celebrated in her native home o f Clark County, Alabama, And the 19th of June has been observed in the southern Florida town of Boynton Beach. T h e m o st c o m m o n ty p e o f Juneteenth celebrations was an all-day secular affair which began around 10 o ’clock in the morning with a parade Juneteenth June 19 January 1,1863, the date o f President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, is solemnly commemorated in many Ameri can black communities. It is, however, only one o f a number of'freedom day" celebrations held on various dates, fo r the end o f slavery was a gradual process and often a local one which evoked local observances. Thus the date on which General Gordon Granger arrived in Texas-June 19,1863-with the avowed intention o f enforcing Lincoln's procla mation, is commemorated a "Juneteenth" in eastern Texas and beyond, and a con siderable body o f tradition and lore has grown up about it. Why is it called "Juneteenth"? Mrs. E.B. Tollette, who lives in a rural black community o f Tollette, Arkansas, has this to say: "I was talking with a friend about it today and he said, jokingly, 'You know how we name things," and said 'was the nine teenth ' and says, 'then we began to call it "Juneteenth," said, 'we nickname these things." Continued on Page 3 .rf > J». t • - • - ' • ■ • V « g « - V«. .«,«.« ;
