On June 19, 1865, Union troops freed enslaved African Americans in Galveston Bay and Texas about two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. When it was announced that 250,000 enslaved Black people were free by executive order, the day became known as Juneteenth.
Juneteenth became recognized as a national holiday on June 17, 2021, but has been celebrated by African Americans since the late 1800s.
Michigan State University has held a Juneteenth celebration event since it became a federal holiday in 2021. This year, June 14 marked the fourth annual MSU Juneteenth Commemorative Celebration held in the Breslin Center. This year's theme was "Acknowledging the Journey: Freedom, Resilience, Empowerment, and Liberation."
MSU President Kevin Guskiewicz talked about the importance of building community together.
“We have to celebrate the different cultures and different people that make up this incredible place,” Guskiewicz said. “The Juneteenth celebration is a way in which we can think about our past, learn from pasts but look to the future.”
The celebration united African American artists, musicians and local businesses to celebrate and remember history.
MSU Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Jabbar R. Bennett said before Juneteenth became a federal holiday, his colleagues on campus had thought about the importance of celebrating this event. They went to the Board of Trustees with the idea in the fall of 2020, three months before Bennett arrived at MSU’s campus, and the board approved and supported the event.
“You have to think about the oppression that Black people experienced for hundreds of years,” Bennett said. “With that oppression, many gifts, talents, and abilities have been suppressed.”
Morgan Renee Hill, the featured artist of the celebration, is a Master of Fine Arts candidate at MSU. Growing up, Hill wanted to be an astrophysicist, but after some encouragement from her mother, decided to pursue her passion for art. Her "Black Banner" piece was displayed at the celebration and aims to emulate joy, she said.
“Art is an outlet for when I want to feel joy," Hill said. “I feel like art is really a way for people to appreciate other people’s perspectives, because my perspective is very different.”
Event emcee and violinist Rodney Page said art is a huge part of Black and African American culture and plays a huge role in bringing communities together.
“(The art) enhances the event in so many different ways,” Page said. “It just makes it more live; it makes it something people can feel and experience.”
Voice performance master's student Phoenix Miranda sang the Black national anthem, "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James and John Johnson.
“They cultivated a song that so beautifully and radically talks about the struggles of what it’s like to be Black in America,” Miranda said. “I’ve sang this song for years, but for some reason, over the past year and a half, I felt the lyrics way more deeply.”
Black-owned businesses were also present as vendors on Friday.
Poet and creative consultant Nyshell Lawrence saw the lack of representation of Black women authors in other bookstores and decided to create the Socialight Society, a Black-owned bookstore located in the Lansing Mall. Lawrence said it’s amazing to be in a space where people come together to celebrate culture.
“There are voices that tend to be marginalized or often times are erased from history,” Lawrence said. “So, to have a specific time where we’re celebrating these things and bringing them to the forefront is definitely important.”
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The event provided a space for African American culture to be celebrated and shared. Attendees could receive food and connect with Black-owned businesses while learning about the significance of Juneteenth.
“We intentionally call it a commemorative celebration because what we’re celebrating is the end of enslaved Africans in the United States,” Bennett said. “(The event) is about ingenuity and perseverance. We’re celebrating the success of African Americans post-slavery, without all of the traditional bondage that suppressed them and being able to live and move freely.”
