Salisbury celebrated Juneteenth this past weekend with a parade. Delmarva Public Media's Colin Bright has this portrait.
The streets in downtown Salisbury were all closed Saturday. It was hot, but there were several hundred people eating, shopping, listening to music, watching kids cool themselves in Unity Square. There was a short parade and there was dancing. It's Juneteenth in Salisbury. It's a party.
“My sorors and I come to march in the Juneteenth Parade every year. So, it's an honor and a privilege and a lot of fun to do it", says April Wright of the Zeta Phi Beta sorority. Her sorority was part of the parade. To her, Juneteenth is about the life she chooses.
“Freedom. It means emancipation. It means living and being able to live in the way that I choose to”, Wright explained.
Juneteenth celebrates the day in 1865 when a group of enslaved people in Texas first found out that they were free, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. The holiday has grown over the years across the nation and certainly in Salisbury too. To Zebediah Hall, Vice President of Inclusion, Access and Belonging at Salisbury University, it's about the people he's surrounded by.
“What brought me out here is to support the community. I understand the importance of Juneteenth and also a part of Salisbury University. We want to also be as supportive as we can of the community”, said Hall.
As you can hear, Juneteenth is very much a celebration. But to Hall, it's also a reminder of the progress that black Americans still need to make.
“Juneteenth means to me that we still have a lot of work to do. Juneteenth means to me it was a start to freedom. Juneteenth means to me that we have a long way to go if we want to achieve freedom”, Hall continued.
BJ Hyland was there in the shade of a building, getting his hair re-twisted, and watching the parade.
“Just to celebrate my freedom, seeing other people like me, not even like me. Seeing everybody come together and celebrate one another is mostly what I enjoy. Seeing happy faces, seeing familiar faces, seeing people who don't know each other, networking. It's all just about community, at the end of the day”, Hyland said.
The smell of barbecue permeated the air, mixing with rhythms of hip hop and funk. Adding to the sense of community was a school bus painted in street art, sponsored by the Hoops on the Ave, a street ball festival that embraces basketball-culture, art, and entertainment. For Hyland, as for many of the others who came out to celebrate Juneteenth, it's more than about history. It's about where he is today. It all adds up to one thing.
“Freedom. I celebrate my freedom, celebrate the things that history and people, and places brought my ancestors from. So today we celebrate the place where we are now and the place we continue to be in the future”, Hyland finished.
For Delmarva Public Media, this is Colin Bright.
