In Akron, Juneteenth has been celebrated longer than 15-year-old Zaela Sutton has been alive.
Yet the sophomore at Akron School for the Arts enjoys a strong connection to America’s newest federal holiday. She looks forward to June 19.
Good food. Good music. Good times.
“It shows Black people in a more good light and reminds them that they’re not just freed slaves, they’re actual people,” said Sutton, whose mother, Fela, is the lead coordinator for one of several Juneteenth festivals in Akron.
Across Northeast Ohio, residents and visitors are faced with a similar question:
What does Juneteenth mean to you?
Is it a celebration? A solemn remembrance? A day off from work? Or do African Americans feel not enough has been accomplished in the space of U.S. race relations to relax?
Signal Akron and Signal Cleveland asked residents to share their perspectives.
In Akron, Mayor Shammas Malik announced Friday night that all large events on city property this weekend have been canceled because of “safety concerns” City Council members expressed in the wake of the June 2 shooting in East Akron.
‘Black freedom from chattel slavery was not free, it did not happen overnight’
Regennia N. Williams has probably been familiar with Juneteenth for longer than most of her fellow Northeast Ohio natives.
More than 30 years ago, Williams started teaching African American history at Cleveland State University. In preparation, she read about the southern roots of the holiday.
Williams also remembers attending a Juneteenth event at Cleveland’s Euclid Avenue Congregational Church more than 20 years ago.
These experiences helped her understand the holiday’s importance.
“Juneteenth is important to me because it reminds me that Black freedom from chattel slavery was not free, it did not happen overnight, but it is worth celebrating,” said Williams, who serves as a distinguished scholar of African American History and Culture at the Cleveland History Center of the Western Reserve Historical Society.
“The holiday also reminds me of the importance of knowing, exercising and protecting your rights and those of others.”
It takes a village
For Maple Valley resident Shareefah Wahid, Juneteenth is all about sharing Black history with Akron’s youth.
It’s not just about celebrations and parties, she said.
“Really, it was our independence,” said Wahid, 73, who has organized Juneteenth events for about 20 years.
One of this year’s events she’s excited about is a Juneteenth reenactment June 18 at the Maple Valley Branch Library at 3 p.m. In addition to the reenactment, Wahid and a few other participants will act out five-minute skits depicting famous Black leaders – Malcolm X, former U.S. President Barack Obama, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. The goal is to instill the significance of the historical figures in youth.
Wahid’s grandson, 11-year-old Hasan Wahid, will play a soldier in the Juneteenth skit.
“This is good for him because they don’t really feel what happened that day,” Wahid said. “They just hear it.”
Beyond the sharing of history, Juneteenth in Akron is about food and music, Wahid said. She emphasized the importance of song as a way to bring people together, specifically noting the 1985 single, “We are the World.”
At the Juneteenth reenactment, Kwame Williams, a deacon at Mount Calvary Baptist Church and the event emcee, plans to play the drums with his family.
Williams, 72, has worked with Wahid on Juneteenth festivities for the past two decades. They are both a part of “the village” — the Village Keepers of Ohio Inc. The group’s elders provide community support and plans celebrations for Juneteenth and Kwanzaa.
“A lot of the elders, once they get there, that is a reservoir of talent and expertise untapped,” Williams said.
‘A Sankofa moment’
In a way, the spirit of Juneteenth was woven into Akron native Marilyn Sanders Mobley’s life long before she heard the word for the first time. Her parents, who were active in the NAACP, taught her to connect the past with the present.
And that’s part of the reason why Ralph Ellison’s novel “Juneteenth,” published in 1999, resonated with her. The book was published long after Ellison’s death, but he had chosen the epigraph, a few lines from a T.S. Elliott poem:
“This is the use of memory: for liberation, not less of love, but expanding of love beyond desire, and so liberation from the future as well as the past.”
Today, Mobley is an emerita professor of English and African American Studies at Case Western Reserve University.
“For me, the Juneteenth celebration is what I call a Sankofa moment,” she said. “Sankofa is a Ghanaian symbol from the Akan people. It’s a bird. The bird’s body is pointing toward the future, but the bird’s head is pointed toward the back and lifting an egg off of its back. The symbolism is that we have to go back and fetch the past or be familiar with the past to go forward.”
She hopes that young people, growing up in a time when some want to obscure history and limit access to books, embrace the past as they plan for the future.
“I think about what the scholar Fredric Jameson said, ‘Always historicize’,” she said. “So I just want to be sure that people bring a historical perspective.”
“We have freedom, but in the midst of our freedom, we’re in a continuum of struggle because there is poverty, health disparities, educational disparities. And I just want to be sure that this generation knows this struggle continues. Dr. (Martin Luther) King said that change never rolls in on wheels of inevitability, that it takes struggle.”
Expressing joy in the midst of struggle
Growing up in Indiana, Joy Bostic didn’t know about Juneteenth. But in her family, there were discussions and tensions around the Fourth of July, and what that meant for African Americans.
Juneteenth reminds her of those family discussions from her childhood.
“We always went to the fireworks,” Bostic said. “We always wore our colors, etc., because we saw ourselves as included and instrumental.”
Today, Bostic is an associate dean at Case Western Reserve University and director of the school’s African and African American Studies.
“What Juneteenth really represents, for me, is the complexity around what does it mean for Black people to continue to struggle for freedom? To continue to survive and thrive, to create and innovate and to contribute … in the midst of the pushback [from] those who … still have strong allegiances to white supremacy?”
“So the celebration is always about how we express and embrace joy, even in the midst of struggle and denial.”
Bostic generally attends events at Case and elsewhere around the holiday (this year she’ll be in New York), but reserves the day itself for rest and reflection.
“I love preparing traditional foods such as red hibiscus drinks and rice that provide a sense of solidarity with others celebrating across the city, state and nation,” she said. “It also helps me to connect to those who have come before me. Rest itself is an important act of agency and resistance. It is restorative and helps me to refuel to continue to work for freedom and justice throughout the year.”
Embed: A Conversation on Race, Slavery and Freedom with Joy R. Bostic
