Vermonters gathered at parks, schools and other spots across Burlington Saturday for the first city-wide celebration of Juneteenth.
The federal government also designated Juneteenth a federal holiday earlier this week. The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers arrived in Texas and told enslaved African Americans of their freedom, some two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Burlington’s events, which were organized by its Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Office, kicked off with a brunch and gospel choir performance in City Hall Park.
Several leaders who spoke to the crowd praised the widening recognition of Juneteenth, but emphasized ongoing and yet-reached goals for racial justice in the United States.
“Yes, we can celebrate today, that’s good,” said Mark Hughes, a racial justice activist and executive director of Justice For All VT. “But let us not lose focus that there is much, much work to be done.”
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger used part of his speech at City Hall Park to announce a housing summit slated for August that will be “focused on closing the gross disparity in Black homeownership rates here in Burlington.”
Data from the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance shows that just 2.3% of Burlington’s Black residents own their homes, compared to 38% of the city’s white residents.
Skyler Nash, a public policy and research analyst at the Racial Equity, Inclusion and Belonging Office, said the city’s Juneteenth celebration took 15 months of planning, and it was complicated by the changing conditions of the pandemic.
Nash, 23, said before Gov. Phil Scott lifted pandemic restrictions last week, he expected each event to be much smaller, maybe 100 attendees at each site.
“So to quickly pivot to this massive event was exciting and scary,” he said. “It’s beautiful to see everybody together and healthy and happy.”
Like Hughes, Nash was also glad to see Juneteenth receiving official recognition. But he said he also hopes Congress pushes forward on more civil rights legislation.
“I think that the next bill that they should pass should be a voting rights bill, to protect the voting rights of the people that they’re honoring,” Nash said.
A few miles from City Hall, people flowed in and out behind Flynn Elementary School, which hosted food carts, performances, arts activities and an exhibition of the Black History 101 Mobile Museum.
The mobile museum, which includes documents and objects from the Atlantic slave trade up until today, is part of a 10,000-object collection by Khalid el-Hakim, who taught middle school social studies in Detroit until 2011. He first used the collection in his classroom, but has now brought the archive to 41 states.
“I hope people take away the fact that American history is a lot more involved than the average American has been exposed to their K through 12 experience, [and] in some cases, their college experience,” el-Hakim said.
Some of the day’s volunteers said that they were spurred to participate after realizing the gaps in their own education. Several said they only learned what Juneteenth was during the last few years, often well into adulthood.
Kristen Watson, a teacher at Burlington City Arts, spent the afternoon volunteering at a children’s art activity behind Flynn Elementary. Watson, 45, said she hopes events like these prevent the educational gaps she experienced.
“I just really wanted to help kids connect with the history, because I’m learning about it too, so we’re learning about it together,” she said. “The sooner they learn about it — like they’re the next generation, so they’re getting what we didn’t get.”
Jacqueline Posley, who attended the morning’s events in City Hall Park, praised the city’s plans for the day.
“It’s a beautiful event in Vermont where Black people can come together and congregate in one place,” she said. “So creating this, and its longevity, is very important.”
But she also noted that while this is Burlington’s first city-organized Juuneteenth celebration, the day, and its traditions, are far from new.
“It’s always been a holiday for us. So I think it’s a good idea for white people to catch on and mark the day, that they would like to start celebrating it,” Posey said. “I don’t appreciate it being called the first initial anything, because in terms of Juneteenth itself being a federal holiday, it’s been a holiday. I appreciate the recognition, but welcome to the party.”
