When Karen Nell asked for volunteers to lead the June Seeds of Grace worship, something nudged me to accept the challenge. I did not know at the time that it was to be a Juneteenth recognition service. Once I found that out, I was so happy I volunteered. You see, over the last few years my curiosity about systemic racism and my part in it has become more acute.
Although I was familiar with the term Juneteenth and what it stood for, this was a recently obtained knowledge. I was excited to learn more about it. So, with my Seeds of Grace partner, Cindy Sweeney, we did some research. We learned that it was only last year that Juneteenth became a national holiday and that Opal Lee, a 94-year-old woman from Texas was one of the people responsible for pushing for this to happen. She had been working on this for most of her adult life.
We also learned that this has been a holiday in Texas even since 1866 and it was originally called Jubilee Day celebrated on June 19. Although, the Civil War ended in April of 1965 the slaves of Texas were not notified of their freedom until June of that year (Texas was a confederate state). Even then, some slaveholders withheld the information from their slaves until after the harvest that year.
This all led me to believe that, although Juneteenth is indeed a day to celebrate as the final nail in the coffin of slavery, there is still, after more than 150 years, so much more that needs to be done to eradicate racism.
At the Juneteenth Seeds of Grace service, the question was posed as to what things people had learned about racism that was new to them, both personally and systemically. Other than Juneteenth, one thing mentioned was the destruction of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street and the horrendous loss of life there. Another was voter suppression and how incarceration was a tool to facilitate that, and another was redlining and the GI bill. It was also mentioned that recognizing and confronting our own long held prejudices that we weren’t even aware of was disturbing.
It was a very rewarding experience for me.
Peggy Harrison, Treasurer, Justice and Love in Action Board