Juneteenth in Western Pennsylvania has long roots, history

As the region celebrates Juneteenth, education about the holiday and its importance has been at the forefront of many festivals and events.

The new federal holiday, celebrated annually on June 19, recognizes the day in 1865 that Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas, and spread the news that the Civil War had ended and slaves had been freed.

That was two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln became law.

Momodu C. Taylor said the day was not the freedom of Black people, but the day that those in Texas who were enslaved were declared free.

“It took time for news to travel and Union forces to enforce it,” said Taylor, chief diversity officer and adjunct professor of history at Seton Hill University.

Gen. Gordon Granger was given command of the Department of Texas on June 10, 1865. When he got to Galveston on June 19, he officially declared the 250,000 slaves in Texas free, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

Juneteenth is America’s second Independence Day, said William Marshall, CEO and founder of Stop the Violence Pittsburgh, the organization that holds the Western Pennsylvania Juneteenth celebration.

“When the U.S. got its independence from Britain, our ancestors were still enslaved, and that is why Black people do not celebrate the Fourth of July — because it is not for us,” he said.

After creating the organization that aimed to curb gun violence in Pittsburgh in 2013, Marshall wanted to use the opportunity to unify the city in the process.

He saw Juneteenth as the perfect opportunity to bring everyone together while educating and raising awareness about the holiday.

For nine years, he has helped organize the three-day Western Pennsylvania Juneteenth celebration. Marshall said during its first year in 2013, the Juneteenth Increase the Peace event held at Stage AE drew 100 people. In 2021, he was told the organization held the biggest Juneteenth Soul Food and Black Music Festival in the country at Point State Park.

This year’s celebration, which started Friday and ends today, includes a jubilee parade, sports, a music festival and 100 minority-owned business vendors.

Why did it take so long for Juneteenth to be recognized?

Taylor said the heightened awareness from the summer 2020 protests that stemmed from George Floyd’s death or the changing of offensive logos and names — such as the Washington Redskins football team rebranding as the Washington Commanders — prompted the United States to recognize Juneteenth.

“There have to be these events and oftentimes unfortunate events that tap into the consciousness of the nation,” Taylor said.

Observing Juneteenth and properly educating people helps.

“We have to teach students about this so they have a lens on the world around them,” he said. “Not to say we want them to be shocked, but we want them to be able to understand and look at America in a more dissected way to be better Americans.”

Although Pittsburgh officially declared Juneteenth an official holiday in August 2020, effective June 2021, the city has held annual celebrations for it as early as the 1890s by having parades, sporting events (baseball), live music, and speeches and sermons, according to Samuel Black, director of the African American Program at the Senator John Heinz History Center.

President Biden signed a bill in June 2021 declaring Juneteenth a federal holiday.

“Observance grew out of Texas primarily moving North, but also moving to other Southern states,” Black said. “This is really the first time this country will recognize and celebrate Juneteenth as a national holiday. We will see how it is 10 years from now and how it will evolve over time.”

Even before Juneteenth, Black people had other observances of freedom going back as early as the 1800s, recognizing the Haitian Revolution, abolition of slavery from the British Empire and the recognized Emancipation Day.

Black said people were going to celebrate Juneteenth whether the government recognized it or not.

At the Heinz History Center, Black said the museum has been teaching visitors about Juneteenth since 2015 and has worked with Stop the Violence on program content and celebration initiatives. The museum will soon hold a workshop for teachers to learn how to include the holiday in their lesson plans.

“You can’t expect teachers to understand it and how to teach it or school districts to accept it and add it to the curriculum. It’s one thing to get it official and another to get it in classrooms. It doesn’t mean people will celebrate it,” he said.

Impact in communities

Celebrating Juneteenth has spread to surrounding communities as more people strive to raise awareness around the holiday.

“We were part of the originators of Juneteenth in Pittsburgh. We have been a part of that celebration with this city ever since,” said the Rev. Dale Snyder of Bethel AME Church in the Hill District.

Snyder said this year’s Bethel AME celebration focuses on reparations and getting back what belongs to them. He said the church, which was formed in 1808, will discuss how their land and building were taken away and destroyed for the building of the Civic Arena in the 1950s.

“We are asking them to give us a fair return on our investment,” he said. “We are looking at equality, equity and ways we can find remedies to solve these historic wrongs.”

Snyder said the viewpoint is why raising awareness around Juneteenth and holding events to celebrate it are important to continue to educate people about the past.

“You can’t correct what has happened until you have the truth,” he said. “Once you have the truth, you can make a logical decision of what side of history to be on.”

Shawnda Davis, a board director for the Sewickley Community Center and its Juneteenth Committee, said the center helped bring Juneteenth celebrations back to Sewickley. The borough had acknowledged Juneteenth and held celebrations annually for 55 years, before they folded after Sewickley’s American Legion closed.

Since the return of the Sewickley Juneteenth celebration, “it has grown each year. Even through covid, we were able to do it online,” Davis said.

Davis said bringing back Juneteenth celebrations was a way of getting true history out to their community.

“We wanted the community to be aware of Juneteenth before it became a national holiday,” she said. “Sewickley has so many new people that we felt they didn’t know what it meant.”

This is the center’s fourth year holding a celebration, Davis said.

“We are happy to bring this back in some form to let the newer generations know not just about Juneteenth, but the history of the Sewickley Community Center,” she said.