Juneteenth Festival honors Black culture, tradition

GALVESTON: Hundreds celebrate in day’s birthplace

GALVESTON — A Black woman wouldn’t dare walk through the front door of Ashton Villa when the three-story brick house served as the headquarters for the Confederate Army.

Ada Majors, 66, entered Saturday with a smile on her face as hundreds celebrated Juneteenth in the birthplace of America’s newest national holiday. For the 42nd year, Galveston hosted an array of celebrations to mark the day in 1865 that slaves in Texas learned — two years delayed — of their freedom as the Civil War waned and a 150-year-plus struggle began for the “absolute equality” promised that day.

Galvestonians took to the streets for parades, picnics, cookouts and marches, just days after President Joe Biden signed the

law marking Juneteenth as a national holiday.

“Folks, this is a step toward a more perfect union,” Rep. Randy Weber, R-Friendswood, told the crowd at Ashton Villa, echoing President Abraham Lincoln’s use of the words from the U.S. Constitution.

Soldiers read orders from Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, commander of the Union army in Texas, from the Union’s headquarters at 22nd and Strand, where the mural now stands. They then marched to the U.S. Customs House and then to what is now Reedy Chapel — AME Church, reading along the route the order that said “the people of Texas are informed that … all slaves are free.”

Artists and elected officials officially dedicated the mural on Saturday, marking it as a colorful history lesson that America’s past is never too far back to forget.

“The greatest asset, the greatest quality of America, is its ability to correct its mistakes,” said Dantrel Boone, one of the artists who created the 5,000square-foot mural with roughly 300 gallons of paint.

The mural will stand as a reminder, both nationally and locally, that diversity makes the community and nation stronger.

“No one color makes a beautiful art piece. The combination of color makes the beauty we see today,” said Samson Adenugba, a Nigerian-born artist who contributed to the mural. “The diversity is the strength … It is foolishness to build on our weakness. Let’s build on our strength and our unity.”

Looking at what she called “a great mosaic of people,” U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Houston, who with Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn pressed for a national holiday, urged the crowd to celebrate while commemorating all of those who struggled, including oppressed slaves who perhaps did not understand what Granger’s order contained.

Reading was illegal among slaves, so as Union troops — most Black — spread word, it is possible parts of the order to stay and work for wages eluded the former slaves.

“Maybe they didn’t know what an employee was,” Jackson Lee said. “They understood there was something called emancipation and freedom.”

As the kids snatched candy thrown from passing parade floats and cars, Laquisia Jones, 63, noted that the children probably don’t know much — if anything — about Juneteenth, a day current and former Galveston residents have returned to the island to celebrate for decades.

“We will have a reason to explain it,” Jones said. “They will have fun, but as they get older they will know it is important to somebody and with that comes education.”

For some, the family bonds run deep.

“This is my father’s legacy,” said Gwynethia Shabazz Pope, daughter of Jama Jihad Shabazz, a mainstay of the island’s Juneteenth parade and picnic. “He has done this parade for as long as I can remember.”

Pope picked up role of parade organizer for the 42nd annual event after Coach Jib, as he was known, died in July.

He is among several major Juneteenth figures who died shortly before the law recognizing the national holiday was signed. Al Edwards, a former state representative from Houston who authored the state’s approval of the holiday in 1979, died in April 2020.

The expansion of the holiday added to the celebration. “It makes you feel proud the world recognizes something we have always done,” Pope said.

It’s regrettable, many said, that it took 156 years for the day to be recognized.

“It’s too little too late for me and being a holiday just now is shameful,” said Brian Wagner, 38, of Houston, who brought his two sons to Galveston. “This should be taught to everyone in American history.”

Photos by Robin Jerstad / Contributor ABOVE: Dasha Nicholson posts her flag Saturday during the second day of the 2021 Juneteenth Festival at Comanche Park #2. The event is a celebration of Black culture, legacy, tradition and influence, event organizer Byron Miller said. RIGHT: Richard Dibrell shovels coals onto pits to cook over 2,500 chickens at the park. Just days before, President Joe Biden signed a bill to make Juneteenth a federally recognized holiday.

Godofredo A. Vásquez / Staff photographer Ella Young, left, and Mary Thompson and her daughter Rosie Brown Lee sing along to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing” during the Juneteenth celebration Saturday in Galveston.

Godofredo A. Vásquez / Staff photographer Samson Adenugba raises his fist as he delivers a speech to a crowd in attendance for the dedication ceremony of the Absolute Equality mural, which is part of the Juneteenth Legacy Project, on Saturday in Galveston. Adenugba is part of The Creative, a group of artists that worked with Reginald Charles on the mural.