Juneteenth celebration reflects city’s diversity

Annual event celebrates freedom, recalls end of slavery in United States
By J.J. McCorvey jmccorvey@heraldt.com
July 1, 2007

BLOOMINGTON ­ — The ninth annual local Juneteenth celebration was designed to honor African-American freedom, but the make-up of the crowd was an indication of Bloomington’s true racial and cultural diversity.

“This is a program IU initiated to build bridges between IU, the city of Bloomington, Ivy Tech and everybody else, so it’s important that everybody’s here,” said Oyibo Afoaku, director of the Indiana University Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center. “We are glad that white people are here; when they are here, they learn about slavery and its eventual end. It’s about knowledge and education for everyone.”

Saturday’s event was kicked off by a parade that started at the Neal-Marshall Center and ended at Bryan Park, where the diverse crowd was treated to music, dances, poetry and speeches that celebrated the lives of those who endured slavery as well as those who emerged from it.

Juneteenth is observed nationally as African-American Emancipation Day. It originated in Galveston, Texas, in 1865, and is officially marked on June 19 to recognize the day the last group of slaves heard about their freedom — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Although the celebration is an Afrocentric one, members of other races felt the significance of what the event symbolized.

“This is something all races should come out and enjoy,” Colleen Haas, 46, said. “I love the cultural aspects of the events, as I am with anything that has to do with the (African) Diaspora. I like to be around it and just be a presence.”

Mayor Mark Kruzan stressed the importance of the unity of Bloomington’s citizens, as well as the unity of all Americans.

“We all want to be one community,” Kruzan told the audience. “We cannot be truly be a country until all of its people are free.”

Kruzan listed job discrimination and poverty, among other things, as limitations that still exist to universal American freedom.

Members of the youth dance group Cry of the Children performed praise dances during the ceremony. Dellsie Boddie, the group’s sponsor, said the dancers did not dance “just to be dancing.”

“They’re not just coming thinking ‘we are here to dance,’” Boddie said. “They come prepared and informed of the history and culture.”

Afoaku envisions the effects of Juneteenth on a much larger scale than just Bloomington.

“Without Juneteenth, there would be no free society as far as the U.S. is concerned,” she said. “You cannot have a democratic society while you still have slaves, so Juneteenth, for us, marks the true beginning of American democratic society.”