Celebrating freedom in Inwood Park for Juneteenth

Local Juneteenth events are growing across the United States. Now that it’s a federal holiday the festivities were present at Inwood Park. Letters decorated in African prints spelling Juneteenth, red, white, and blue balloons draped a gazebo column and barbecues were cooking chicken, burgers, and hot dogs.

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

Inwood resident and Wings of Faith Ministries member Ilyassha Shivers, hosted the celebration with his family, extended family, church members, and friends for the third year in a row at Inwood Park.

His wife, Karen Shivers, pointed to the progress society has made when it comes to civil rights but said that the current state of civil rights today is still “sad” and much more work needs to be done including a need to educate young people on Black history to continue to create positive societal changes.

“We have the red, white, and blue balloons, recognizing that this is a great country but it has a troubled history, and we want to acknowledge both,” she said. “There are a lot of atrocities, and we never want to forget. We want to pass it down to our young people so that they’ll remember.”

Juneteenth is now the 12th federal holiday and the first federal holiday created since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Shiver’s father, Warren, has seen civil rights struggles firsthand.

Warren turns 78 on June 25 and after his pastoral anniversary on June 4, has been a pastor at Wings of Faith for 39 years. He recalled when his father, James, lost his sanitation job in Elloree, South Carolina in 1955 after signing a petition calling for school integration. Warren said, in some ways, civil rights progress is taking steps backward because of a lack of influential voices speaking on Black issues, black on black crime and a lack of willingness from people to take the similar risks they did back in the 1950s.

“It’s going backward because people don’t want to sacrifice,” Warren said. “My father was not the only one, I talked to many elders who lost their jobs. Many lost their lives. Now people don’t want to do that anymore. They’re afraid. We don’t have true liberation. The liberation movement is not real if it goes too far left or too far right.”

Ilyassha said that growing the importance of Juneteenth must first start with the Black community and drew similarities to how the Jewish community remembers the Holocaust.

“They always say never to forget, and we want the kids to remember the history,” he said. “When you hear about civil rights abuse now it can mean many groups, but [Black people] are still being marginalized, and we’re still being singled out. We can’t let other groups define our pain. It must be important to us, and we must hold everyone to the same standard in respecting history and respecting culture. Juneteenth is a federal holiday, but you still have some companies and jobs that didn’t give their employees off. People will say slavery was hundreds of years ago, but that doesn’t make a difference. Until we realize that and make [Juneteenth] respected, it’s always going to be seen as a second-class holiday.”