by Jarrett Hoffman
IN THIS EDITION:
•Today: organist Robert Myers at Trinity Lutheran, The Sound of Music at OLO, and Juneteenth events throughout the region
•Celebrating the holiday: the history around this date, including the “grandmother of Juneteenth” (pictured) and her decades-long push for it to be federally recognized
HAPPENING TODAY:
The Wednesday Noon Organ Concert by Robert Myers at Trinity Lutheran Church at 12:15 will be a program titled “The B’s of the Baroque,” including music by J.S. Bach, Georg Boehm, Nicolaus Bruhns, and Dietrich Buxtehude. A freewill offering will be taken up.
And at 2:00 pm at Freedlander Theatre in Wooster, Ohio Light Opera presents Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music. Tickets are available here.
There are also several events today in honor of Juneteenth — see the bottom of this article.
CELEBRATING JUNETEENTH:
On January 1, 1863, as the Civil War entered its third calendar year, President Lincoln formally issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared “that all persons held as slaves” within states that seceded from the Union “are, and henceforward shall be free.” And yet, even as the news spread, nothing could be enforced without a Union victory in any given region of the Confederacy.
And so it wasn’t until June 19, 1865 — a date often considered to be shortly after the conclusion of the War — that the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect, when Union Major General Gordon Granger announced General Order No. 3, freeing slaves in the state of Texas. And it is that date that, as early as 1866, has been celebrated ever since as Juneteenth — a portmanteau of June and 19th.
For a long time, activists pushed for Juneteenth to be recognized as a federal holiday. One such activist is Opal Lee, considered the “grandmother of Juneteenth,” who campaigned on this issue for decades. She has felt the impact of this date since age 12 when, five days after her parents had purchased a house in a mostly white area of Fort Worth, Texas, hundreds of rioters burned it to the ground.
“The fact that it happened on the 19th day of June has spurred me to make people understand that Juneteenth is not just a festival,” she has said.
Fittingly, she stood beside President Biden when he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law in 2021 — making 2024 just the fourth year for this day to be celebrated as a national holiday.
If you’re looking for ways to celebrate in the region, WKYC has compiled a handy list of events, including several that will take place today — and several that include music. Click here to view.
Or if you’re not able to make it to any particular event, the “grandmother of Juneteenth” — now 97 years old — provides another way to mark the holiday. Simply go outside, wherever you are, and walk for two and a half miles.
Not only does that tradition symbolize the two and a half years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to finally take effect in the state of Texas, but it also continues in the line of famous walks that Opal Lee led in her campaign for Juneteenth to finally become a federal holiday.
Register to join Opal’s Walk here.