Juneteenth a remembrance
More than a thousand gathered in downtown Orlando on Friday to celebrate Freedom Day
It was a solemn remembrance of lives lost, a raucous march, a jubilant celebration and a call to action: More than a thousand people gathered in downtown Orlando on Friday to mark Juneteenth, one of a slew of events observing the holiday across Central Florida.
The holiday, which com- year, coming amid ongoing memorates the end of slavery, has nationwide protests against racial drawn renewed attention this inequality and police brutality, which erupted in many American cities after the Minneapolis killing of George Floyd.
Many of the sights downtown Friday — Black Lives Matter shirts, signs that said “Stop Police Brutality” and “I can’t breathe” — recalled the protests, but the sounds were of celebration, with music blasting as the crowd danced its way through the city before a block party began on Church Street.
The crowd began to build at Lake Eola in the afternoon, where demonstrators lifted yellow roses in remembrance of those lost to violence.
“Hold up a yellow rose and speak out loudly their names,” instructed Sheena Rolle, of Faith in Florida, a network of community organizations with a mission to combat systemic racism. “Then offer it to the ground they lived on. Be a living altar … and go beyond mourning.”
Pastor Derrick McRae, founder of The Experience Christian Center, urged the crowd to con
tinue demonstrating and making their voices heard.
“We’ve all got to pray. We’ve all got to talk to God… [but] talking to God is not enough,” he said. “We’ve also got to take it to the streets. It’s the reason why we’re here today. Because of the fact that we’ve got to get outside of our four walls and make noise in the streets to let everybody know that we are here to stay until we see change take place.”
He also told those in attendance to change the system by joining together to “help contact, educate and mobilize voters.”
“We’ve got to share the word that it’s good that we walk, but we’ve got to make sure we go to the ballot box and make some changes,” he said.
Parramore resident and longtime activist Lawanna Gelzer kicked off the event, dubbed Juneteenth Freedom Day March & Block Party. She told the crowd that, while the Junteenth festivities may be jubilant, “We can’t just celebrate.”
“We have to understand why we’re fighting and what we’re fighting against,” she said.
A mash-up of June and 19th, also called called Freedom Day or Jubilee Day, Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865, after the Confederate states surrendered, when Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Texas to inform enslaved African Americans they had been freed by President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
Events were also held locally Friday in Sanford, Kissimmee and Tavares, among other cities, as well as online.
Many are a continuation of weeks of demonstrations across the county in reaction to the killing of Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes of agony caught on video.
Cynthia, who declined to give her last name, drove from Lake County with her husband to march in downtown Orlando. She said she was inspired by her 26-year-old daughter, a student at the University of Louisville, protesting daily in remembrance of Breonna Taylor, a black emergency room technician who was killed by police during a raid at her home in March.
“We’ve got to speak up [and] set an example for the younger ones protesting,” she said. “I’m proud to be here supporting my community.”
Despite the upbeat nature of the march, Cynthia was still concerned about the recent spike in coronavirus cases, so she wore a double layer of masks and walked in front of the crowd, dancing to music played off marchers’ speakers. Most in the crowd were wearing masks.
Earlier in the day, dozens turned out for a rally at Bill Breeze Park in Ocoee organized by State Rep. Geraldine Thompson. As the event began a short walk from Ocoee City Hall, Thompson read the names of black men and women who’ve lost their lives in high-profile killings.
“Are you exhausted by this list of names?” she asked those gathered. “Are you weary?”
Among the songs on the rally’s soundtrack: John Legend and Common’s “Glory,” which was written for the 2014 film “Selma” about the 1965 voting rights marches, and Sam Cook’s “A Change Is Gonna Come.”
Zaire McCoy, an Ocoee resident, wore a shirt reading, “Juneteenth: Free-ish since 1865.
“I have to pause for a second out of frustration and anger for the lack of knowledge [of issues facing the black community] by many in this country, but at the same time … if there is a time, now is the time,” he said.
Ocoee has its own chapter in the history of antiblack bloodshed: 100 years ago this November, the city was the scene of the worst Election Day violence in U.S. history, when a white mob burned an African American community to the ground in response to a black man’s attempts to vote. After the man sought refuge in the home of Ocoee resident Julius “July” Perry, a posse organized by the Orange County sheriff descended on the home, eventually capturing and arresting Perry. The mob later lynched him.
It’s unclear how many African Americans were killed during the violence — possibly as many as 60, a state report said — but black residents who survived fled the city, which became an all-white place for a halfcentury.
During this morning’s rally, City Commissioner George Oliver told the story behind Juneteenth and discussed Ocoee’s racist history, including 61 years, until 1981, of being a “sundown town” that blacks were advised to avoid — especially after dark. Oliver was elected in 2018 as the city’s first black commissioner. Shortly after, the city formally recognized the massacre in a proclamation.
“It took the City of Ocoee approximately 97 years, 11 months and 18 days to recognize and begin reconciliation efforts,” Oliver said. “We will not forget.”
Ocoee High School senior Rain Bellamy in her speech, called “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” proposed requiring Ocoee schools to teach students about the city’s massacre and changing its Founder’s Day festival date, currently set the week of the massacre’s anniversary.
She also announced a petition to rename Bluford Avenue, which sits adjacent to Bill Breeze Park and currently takes its name from Captain Bluford M. Sims, one of the city’s early settlers who fought for the Confederacy.
Her suggestion: July
Perry Boulevard.
“We have seen statues of racists torn down in these recent weeks, but we have driven alongside one for years,” she said to applause. “We can’t rewrite history, but we do not have to honor a thief any longer.”