Juneteenth celebrations imbued with special meaning
March, block party, kneel-in both celebration and protest
When Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865 — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — the last enslaved Black Americans learned they were finally free.
On Friday, 155 years later, Juneteenth celebrations in Milwaukee and across the country focused on taking more steps toward fulfilling the promise of that freedom.
Milwaukee has a long history of Juneteenth celebrations, but this year’s events — and there were many of them — clearly had newfound meaning as nationwide protests for racial justice stretch into their fourth week.
At the state Capitol building in Madison and the Frank P. Zeidler Municipal Building in downtown Milwaukee, the Juneteenth flag was raised this year for the first time.
“Just like some have July 4 that they celebrate here in this nation, for those of us of African descent in America, this is our day of liberation,” Milwaukee Ald. Milele Coggs said during the flagraising ceremony in Milwaukee.
Outside the Sojourner Family Peace Center, the BLACK WMNZ Emancipation March spotlighted the role women and the LGBTQ community play in the fight for racial justice. Organizers burned sage, led celebrants in a meditation exercise and urged the crowd to celebrate Black women and members of the LGBTQ community.
Elle Halo, an advocate for health equity for LGBTQ people, spoke at the event and hosted the block party that followed the march.
Halo said she was excited to come out to support Juneteenth, Pride Month and the cause of sexual liberation. All those causes overlap, she said, because Black women, and Black members of the LGBTQ community, can experience many forms of discrimination at once.
“Being a Black trans woman,” Halo said, “I don’t really get to pick and choose when it’s a race thing and when it’s an LGBTQ issue or something impacting me just as a woman.”
Oscar Walton, a 28-year-old Milwaukee resident, said he came to the march to celebrate Juneteenth and support Black women.
“I came out because Black women are very important to my life,” said Walton, who is African American. “I’m raising a daughter who’s 4 years old. She’s going to be a Black woman one day. I’m raised by a Black woman — by a single Black mom.”
Black women, Walton said, face a litany of unique challenges. He noted that Black infants and mothers are significantly more likely to die during childbirth in the United States than white Americans.
At Early View Academy of Excellence, Rheanna Pieroni set up for a blood drive on West Good Hope Road, the second of three locations during the day. Pieroni, a donor recruitment representative with Versiti Blood Center of Wisconsin, said about 80 donors came through the three sites.
The organization chose the day, she said, because Juneteenth coincided with Sickle Cell Awareness day — a blood condition that disproportionately affects African Americans and requires transfusions.
“If they don’t have transfusions, sickle cell affects their daily life and quality of life,” she explained.
At another blood drive location, at Mt. Zion Assembly Healing Temple on North Green Bay Avenue, volunteers also conducted a kneel-in at 11:30 a.m. in recognition of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody. Floyd died after a police officer knelt on his neck for
“This here is beautiful.” Ramel Kweku Akyirefi Smith One of the organizers
more than eight minutes.
“Just after a minute, thinking about someone being under you and what that must have been like (for Floyd) ... it made the gravity of what happened so relatable,” Pieroni said.
At a different event, the second annual Day of Love and Remembrance, the celebration of Juneteenth was a spreadout affair, both in proximity and in hours.
One of the organizers, Ramel Kweku Akyirefi Smith said he was happy to see a steady flow of people, as opposed to everyone being packed together as in past Juneteenth Day celebrations. He was also glad to see so many wearing masks.
“This here is beautiful,” he said. The event included census registration and census-taking recruitment opportunities as well as voter registration. The nearby Milwaukee Health Services was also holding COVID-education sessions for people.
At Bader Philanthropies on North King Drive, speakers and dancers took to a platform as youths enjoyed a pink and purple bouncy castle, and food and clothing vendors set up shop.
One of those clothing vendors was Valencia Carrington, who set up a booth selling T-shirts with slogans such as, “My skin is not a weapon.”
Carrington is on furlough from her job as a coordinator at the Boys & Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee.
“My business is Inclusive Attire and I’ve been doing the brand ‘imatter’ since March of this year, before Black Lives Matter was as prominent as it is now,” Carrington said. “Working with teenage girls, I want to make sure they understand they matter.”
That message was prominent throughout the event, with Tatyana Williams taking to the stage to lead people in a chant that resonated with the crowd: “I am allowed to take up space exactly as I am.”