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The Eyes and Ears of the Community"
V o lu m n XXII, N u m b er 2 6
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Juneteenth "92
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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
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Clara Peoples
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Community Care and Bethel Church Volunteers
Emanuel Hospital
Community Care and Bethel Church Volunteers
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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
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