Experts discuss history, impact of Juneteenth
Twenty years ago, some of Laurence Glasco’s friends invited him to a Passover seder dinner.
The dinner — where Jews retell the story of Israelites’ liberation from slavery in ancient Egypt — made him reflect on his own experience growing up as a Black American in Ohio. In his Black elementary and junior high school, Mr. Glasco learned about Black history. But he said they glossed over the topic of slavery, instead focusing on what happened after it ended.
He also remembered his town holding parades for the Fourth of July and Armistice Day, but nothing commemorating Black Americans’ freedom from slavery. At the time, he had only vaguely heard of the holiday Juneteenth.
“We need such celebrations in recognition of these historic events,” Mr. Glasco, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said. “Just like the Jews for 2,000 years have done this, we need to have some counterpart of it, and it makes me very happy that it looks like Juneteenth will become a nationally known day.”
Celebrated on June 19, Juneteenth is an annual holiday that recognizes the emancipation of slaves in the United States. It falls on the anniversary of an 1865 announcement that proclaimed freedom from slavery in Texas at the end of the Civil War, under the terms of President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.
Mr. Glasco and other experts came together on Tuesday afternoon for a panel on “Black Emancipation: A History of Celebra-Andrew tion” held via Zoom. The event —
hosted by Pitt’s Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion — focused on the history of Juneteenth and the holiday’s lasting effects on the Pittsburgh region.
For the first time ever, Pittsburgh and Allegheny County are marking Juneteenth as a legal holiday this year. Pennsylvania also permanently recognizes Juneteenth as a state holiday.
“[The celebration of Juneteenth] is something that we’re starting to see grow each and every year and especially since there’s conversation and proposed legislation in Congress to possibly make a change to a national holiday,” Samuel Black, the director of African American Programs at the Heinz History Center, said. “We’ve seen Juneteenth grow exponentially in all facets of American life.”
Historically, Mr. Black drew upon events such as the Haitian Revolution to explain the history behind Juneteenth. The Haitian Revolution in 1791 — which was the first republic to overthrow slavery in the Western Hemisphere — has deep ties to Pittsburgh. After the revolution, many Black communities in the U.S. were named “Hayti,” including a community in the lower Hill District, Mr. Black said.
Mr. Black said Pittsburghers began celebrating Emancipation Days in the 1840s, commemorating freedom in the British West Indies. He also said McDonald, Pa., started celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S. in the late 19th century.
He added that Juneteenth celebrations don’t just recognize historical events, but the continued effects of slavery in the country and ongoing struggles for freedom.
“It’s not so much the slavery of antebellum America, but it’s a different type of slavery,” he said. “It’s the slavery of having over two million people incarcerated in prisons across this country. It’s the struggle of having people locked out of economic advancement, educational advancement. It’s the struggle of people being victimized in health care.”
Charlene Foggie-Barnett — a Teenie Harris Archive community archivist at the Carnegie Museum of Art and vice president of the African American Historical and Genealogical Society of Pittsburgh — reflected upon this new period of activism and broader recognition of Juneteenth.
Ms. Foggie-Barnett, a native Pittsburgher, said she didn’t learn about the holiday until much later in life. As a child in the 1970s, she also found herself looking for representation in various spaces, such as the Miss America and Miss Universe pageant. She would look for and find few women of color in these pageants.
However, after watching the 2020 movie “Miss Juneteenth” — which tells the story of a former beauty queen preparing her teenage daughter for the “Miss Juneteenth” pageant — Ms. Foggie-Barnett wondered if seeing Black people featured prominently would have given her a stronger sense of pride growing up, and if it’s giving more pride to young people today. The real-life pageant, where dozens of Black girls and women compete for the title, started in 1996.
She also remarked that people need to continue using and learning about places such as at the Hill District’s Freedom Corner and the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.
“I find when talking to people — both Black and white, but mostly white people — look at us from the perspective of six big events: slavery, freedom and reconstruction, Jim Crow, civil rights, Black Panther movement, then the Obama era and now Black Lives Matter. But they won’t and don’t know the connective tissue between all of these,” Ms. Foggie-Barnett said. “If we don’t start with slavery, they will not understand the thread that runs through all of that. That’s what’s missing in education.”