Commemorating Juneteenth in Inwood Park

In and around the gazebo at Inwood Park last Saturday there was signs of a party. Letters decorated in African prints spelling a special word were strong across two section of the gazebo, red, white and blue balloons adorned a column and two barbecues were cooking chicken, burgers and hot dogs.

It could have been a graduation party, a very common sight in June, or a Sweet Sixteen or a family reunion. In a way the festivities were a combination of all three celebrating a newly minted federal holiday that also became a New York state holiday last year.

June 19 is now Juneteenth National Independence Day, a national federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States. Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when news of emancipation finally reached Galveston, Texas, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, officially ending slavery in the United States.

Juneteenth is now the 12th federal holiday and more than two million federal employees in the US will now have the day off, but a few companies such as Nike, JCPenny and Target already recognized Juneteenth as a paid holiday. The District of Columbia and 47 states also recognized Juneteenth as a holiday. It is the first federal holiday created since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. 

Inwood resident and Wings of Faith Ministries member Ilyassha Shivers, who hosted the celebration his family, extended family, church members and friends, said that making Juneteenth a federal holiday provides it with a “stamp of approval.”

“I think that acknowledging Juneteenth on the federal level is definitely a big step,” he said as he took a break from setting up the party. “By making it a federal holiday more people can participate, it will be acknowledged on a different level, it gives a little more legitimacy. These being the first year people have been introduced to it that weren’t aware of the holiday. And next year not only might they find some celebration to participate in themselves but to teach.”

If anyone could offer a history lesson, it is Shivers’ father Warren, who turned 76 on June 25. Warren recalled when his father, James, lost his sanitation job in Elloree, South Carolina in 1955 after signing a petition calling for school integration. “The moment he put his name on that petition he lost his job,” Warren said, couldn’t get a job nowhere in South Carolina.”

Moving to New York, James found work at the Atlantic Beach Club. In looking back, Warren said that the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t really liberate Black people. He is hoping that recognition of Juneteenth is a change in the climate.

“I’m hoping that with this proclamation now is a signal that something good is coming,” he said, adding that this federal holiday is greater than the one for MLK. “Because Dr. King is an individual this recognizes all individuals, all people who have suffered during the Civil Rights struggle gong back 400 years of enslavement.

The celebration included drumming by the Sankoffa Drummers, a water libation symbolizing life and asking the spirits for their blessing and Shelah Shivers who sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the song is called the Black national anthem.

Mustapha, a Far Rockaway resident known as the “Word Chef,” brought a somber view of the commemoration noting that men, especially Black men, need to minimize life’s distractions and get to work, building businesses and infrastructure for our children. “Juneteenth to me is they set us free physically, but also a time for us to fix what they destroyed,” he said.