New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
4 days of Juneteenth celebration
JUNETEENTH HAS BEEN AN OFFICIAL CITY HOLIDAY IN NEW HAVEN SINCE 2020
Last year Juneteenth was declared a federal holiday, but many people don’t understand the significance of the celebration and that the Fourth of July doesn’t celebrate the freedom of all Americans. According to Juneteenth.com, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863, but slavery didn’t truly end until June 19, 1865 when Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were free. New Haven was ahead of the curve and made Juneteenth a city holiday in 2020.
“June 19th becomes one word Juneteenth, so that marks our independence day as African Americans because on July 4, 1776 we were still enslaved, so July Fourth is not our independence day. June 19 is,” Hanan Hameen explained.
Hameen, a doctoral candidate and founder of the Artsucation Academy Network has been involved in establishing Juneteenth celebrations in New Haven with Stetson library branch manager Diane X.
Brown for nearly a decade. Together they championed the Juneteenth celebrations in New Haven and the establishment of the Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven. Since their first Juneteenth celebration in 2013 the city’s celebrations of Juneteenth have grown.
What began as single day’s events has expanded into a four-day celebration featuring a variety of events, hosted by the Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven, the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and the New Haven Museum, held June 17-20.
For this year’s festivities the public is invited to come out and celebrate Juneteenth, even if they don’t know much about the holiday. In fact if you don’t know much about the holiday Brown urges you to come and learn. “I welcome everybody from all walks of life to please come out to at least one of the celebrations. You got four days, pick a day and come out and grab some literature, ask questions, share your story,” she said.
June 17
The Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven will be opening the celebration with a meet and greet at Stetson Library on Friday, June 17 at 4
p.m. where people can meet with local and national Juneteenth leaders as well as artists and organizers within the community.
June 18
On Saturday, June 18 the city will hold a flag raising for the Juneteenth flag, designed by Norwich’s own Ben Haith, at 10:30 a.m. at the New Haven Green. A jazz trumpeter will perform at the flag raising.
Also on June 18, Jesse “Cheese” Hameen II and the Bronx-based Bambara Drum & Dance Ensemble will perform alongside local New Haven talent at the New Haven Green at 7 p.m. Gospel singers Pam Brooks-Campbell and Gabriel Abdul-Karim will also be performing along with African drummer Brian Jarawa Gray. The performance will be held by the Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven and the Arts & Ideas festival.
June 19
The New Haven Museum will host the founder and executive director of the Witness Stones Project at the Pardee-Morris House on Sunday, June 19 to share the lives of Pink and Stepna, who were both enslaved and are now memorialized at the site from noon to 2:30 p.m.
Also on Sunday, the festival and coalition will host the Juneteenth Village at 1 p.m. on the New Haven Green featuring vendors selling African wares and items while also aiming to showcase cooperative economics in the community by symbolizing prosperous Black communities like Greenwood in Tulsa, Okla.
“There will be information about Juneteenth and there’s going to be a few storytellers. So you get the feel of what its like to be in the village with the community,” Brown said. “Of course it’s open for everyone, anyone can come and learn.”
Also during the festival Michael Twitty of the New Haven’s Black & Brown Soul Cyclists will be hosting the Juneteenth Ride, a seven mile bike ride around New Haven, showcasing the city’s history of Black creativity and innovation at 2 p.m. The ride will begin at the New Haven Green.
At Yale Repertory Theatre, the festival will host Afro-vegan cooking with chef Bryant Terry at 3 p.m. where he’ll provide a cooking demonstration.
The festival and coalition will hold the Elder Honoring Ceremony at 7:30 p.m., where members of the New Haven community will be recognized for their work and dedication to New Haven’s Black community. The Keepers of the Culture Performing Arts Company will perform for the elders and each person honored will receive gifts thanking them for their work.
“An elder is a person who is identified in the community as someone who not only gives back, but educates and unlifts and has a special place in the community because they are providing in the community in a way that others have not,” Hameen said.
June 20
The coalition will close out its celebration Monday, June 20 with a family-friendly program from 2-5 p.m. at the Stetson Library. Artsucation Academy Network’s “Africa Is Me!” will have a Juneteeth program featuring dance classes, drumming and interactive workshops and activities about the history of Juneteenth and a mini-parade.
“We hope that these celebrations will continue to do what they have been doing which is to provide a space for people to celebrate the emancipation from enslavement and not just from enslavement, but the freedom of a people who have been held in bondage and the celebration of that fight, of not only surviving but thriving,” Hameen said.