CLEVELAND — Juneteenth has only been a federal holiday since 2021, following a decades-long movement to recognize the end of slavery in the U.S.
Regennia Williams, Ph.D., started diving into Juneteenth's origins when she became an adult.
“Abraham Lincoln issues that Emancipation Proclamation, effective January 1863. Two more bloody years of war before freedom becomes a reality,” Williams said.
The Civil War didn’t end until 1865. Texas was the last state of the confederacy to withhold institutional slavery.
“So Juneteenth reminds us that on June 19, 1865, the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas found out that the war was over that the union was victorious, that the nation, the United States of America had been preserved."
And all enslaved people were free.
"That's why we celebrate this as a Freedom Fest for African descendants’ peoples,” Williams said. “But I’d like to think that it was a victory for all American people."
Slavery would later be abolished in the U.S. with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on Dec. 6, 1865.
Williams, a distinguished scholar of African American History and Culture at the Western Reserve Historial Society, now shares the black freedom struggle, past and present, with audiences young and old.
“It (Civil War) was painful. It was bloody,” Williams said. “I think the struggle to overturn that system was worth it.”
Williams said the federal holiday status coming in 2021, during racial unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the COVID-19 pandemic and other struggles showed progress in the face of imperfections. Fights that still need to be won.
"I think there have been some victories that we should celebrate,” Williams said. “And now, you know, continue to struggle in our own way in this digital age to make that promise of freedom real for a larger number of people."
Including she said women, immigrants and those in the LGBTIQA+ community.
Williams spoke Tuesday night at a Juneteenth event hosted by Neighbor to Neighbor Cleveland. It was held at The Davis located in the city's Glenville neighborhood.
For decades in the South, Juneteenth celebrations featured community-centric events, parades, prayer services and cookouts.
On June 22, Literary Cleveland and ThirdSpace Action Lab will present Culture, Community & Liberation: A Juneteenth Celebration.
“We wanted to do our own and make it unique,” said Michelle Smith, programming director for Literary Cleveland.
Organizers said the arts festival is dedicated to Black history, freedom, and togetherness.
“I think it's an important part of our history,” Smith said.
The festival runs from 12 to 4 p.m. at ThirdSpace Action Lab, located at 1464 E. 105th St. in Cleveland. It’s designed for those 18 and older. Guests are encouraged to pay “as much as you can” to attend.
The celebration will include a creative writing workshop, Liberation Artists in Conversation with Dr. Mary E. Weems and Tecia D. Wilson-Stone, poetry, musical performances and an open mic session.
“There's no sort of field that we haven't contributed to in a really significant and profound way,” Smith said. "This was our way of showing that we deserved our freedom. And it was our way of celebrating our freedom, was a way of building identity in this country… of building a community in this country."
