Juneteenth kicks off this weekend with the Juneteenth Freedom Fest, held at Freedom Park and presented by the York-James City-Williamsburg chapter of the NAACP and James City County Parks and Recreation. It’s one of more than a dozen community events organized in conjunction with the Juneteenth Community Consortium, a group of local organizations that came together to “build a bigger table” to educate, commemorate and celebrate the end of slavery.
As I write today’s column I am excited about both the upcoming Juneteenth festivities and about this column being published on June 14, my birthday! Recently I learned that I share a birthday with 19th century abolitionist and author, Harriet Beecher Stowe.
It was Stowe’s best-selling novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” that exposed the brutal realities of American slavery and fueled the abolitionist movement. This led to the Civil War and Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation that granted freedom to approximately 4 million people enslaved in Southern states.
As we prepare to celebrate Juneteenth, it is only fitting that we reflect upon the work of abolitionists such as Stowe, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Today’s celebration of freedom from slavery and oppression is the fruit of their labor.
The name Juneteenth is derived from the date June 19, 1865, when 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, to enforce compliance with President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The date was celebrated by African Americans for more than a century before becoming a federal holiday in 2022.
Juneteenth begins to hit home when we realize that the seeds of slavery and racial division were first planted here in the Historic Triangle, where Virginia slave laws were codified in the early 1660s. Two hundred years later Virginia would boast the highest population of enslaved people in Southern states. Its agriculture-driven economy yielded a per capita income in the top percentile of all states.
In 1860 more than 40% of the people who lived in the Historic Triangle were enslaved. African labor, skills and knowledge built and helped to keep William & Mary afloat. The school’s 1693 charter included a provision for slavery. The homes of several U.S. presidents, including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were built by the people they enslaved.
Even as Virginia built a robust colony and state at the expense of enslaved African Americans to generate wealth, today state and local leaders have the responsibility to address legacies of slavery that are manifested in racial discrimination in education, health care, policing, employment and housing that still exist today.
Recently The New York Times reported that a white woman refused to sell her Virginia Beach home to a buyer who had offered the full price when she found out the buyer was African American. In the 1950s it was customary for home deeds to have restrictive covenants that denied home sales based on the buyers’ race and religion.
But it’s 2024! How do we stop fighting the same old battles and move forward?
We begin with a commitment to build bigger tables that include and value African American voices. Next, we help to organize and participate in honest discussions about racial issues in our community.
We also correct false historical narratives that have ignored, glossed over or romanticized the extreme suffering that African Americans have endured for centuries due to dehumanizing systems of slavery, Jim Crow and racial discrimination.
Finally, by acknowledging the racial history of our communities and taking tangible actions to repair the harms, we are choosing the path to racial healing, reconciliation and justice.
When we come together to create a more inclusive and just community, we all win!
Laura D. Hill is the executive director of the Virginia Racial Healing Institute, which manages Coming to the Table-Historic Triangle. Learn more about her work at varacialhealinginstitute.org.
