CELEBRATING FREEDOM WHERE IT ALL BEGAN2 | The Daily News | Juneteenth | 2023 “Happy Juneteenth!!!” Juneteenth celebrates the evolution of our country to a more perfect union. We were not perfect in 1528, 1619, 1776, 1836, 1865 or even today, but hopefully we will continue to work together to become a more perfect union. I’m not interested in anybody’s guilt. Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford. I know you didn’t do it, and I didn’t do it either, but I am responsible for it because I am a man and a citizen of this country and you are responsible for it, for the very same reason. - James Baldwin Ad paid for by Wild Lion Productions Samuel Collins III, CTA2023 | Juneteenth | The Daily News | 3 Juneteenth: A milestone in history Text of General Order No. 3 “The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States all slaves are free. That involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness there or elsewhere.” STUART VILLANUEVA/The Daily News file photo Historian Sam Collins III, center, celebrates with Doreen Hughes during a dedication cere- mony for the mural “Absolute Equality” in downtown Galveston on June 19, 2021. A s it has for more than 40 years, the Emancipation Proclamation will be read at Ashton Villa on June 19. The ceremony commemorates Juneteenth, the day in 1865 when Texas slaves were told they were free. After starting in Galveston, the day has long been marked in towns across Texas as a milestone in the long painful history of race relations in the United States. And, in recent decades, it’s taken on national prominence as well. But according to the histori- cal evidence, the Emancipation Proclamation wasn’t read in Galveston on June 19, 1865. In addition, the order the Union Army issued in Galveston that day — General Order No. 3 — might not have been read at all. What’s more, whatever ac- tion the Army might have tak- en, it likely didn’t take place at Ashton Villa, local historians told The Daily News in 2006. In fact, the Emancipation Proclamation was itself never publicly read when it was is- sued in Washington in Septem- ber 1862. HISTORICAL COMPOSITE As it turns out, the Galveston observation of the modern June- teenth celebration appears to be an amalgamation of events at the end of the Civil War. And its location — Ashton Villa — was at least in existence then while the likely scenes of the action no longer are. On June 19, 1865, U.S. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger marched into Galveston at the head of 2,000 Union soldiers. When he did, he issued General Order No. 3, a terse statement in- forming Texans that President Lincoln had freed the slaves two-and-a-half years earlier that’s no longer there. The Emancipation Proclama- tion eventually was read in Gal- veston, but not until Jan. 1, 1866. The “Emancipation Celebra- tion” took place in front of the former courthouse on 21st Street between Ball and Win- nie streets. A group of African Americans then marched to the African Methodist Epis- copal Church at Broadway and 20th Street. That building would later become known as Reedy Chapel AME. As with the Osterman Building, neither the original church nor the old courthouse exists today. That Reedy Chapel burned down in 1885, to be replaced with the church that’s there today at 2015 Broadway. But the celebration lived on. EXPANDING CELEBRATION By 1867, Juneteenth was celebrated in Austin under the direction of the Freedmen’s Bureau, according to the Handbook of Texas Online. It then spread to Houston, Bren- ham, Beeville and elsewhere. And whether Galveston’s Juneteenth celebration is a strict reenactment of history isn’t what’s important historians say. “It doesn’t matter where it was read; what’s important is the content of the orders — the implication the message of freedom,” Casey Greene, for- mer head of special collections at Rosenberg Library, told The Daily News in 2006. General Order No. 3 notified black Texans that what Lincoln had promised them years earli- er had come to pass. DRASTIC ACTION In 1862, with the war go- ing badly, Lincoln had begun to change his thinking about slavery. Long an advocate of gradual abolition by paying slave owners, he began to believe that more drastic action was needed. The war was becoming in- creasingly unpopular and en- listments were dwindling. As they did, Lincoln faced increas- ing pressure from northern abolitionists to take at least some action to free slaves. So, in July, as a military mea- sure, he drafted a proclamation ironically freeing slaves in rebel states, where he had no practi- cal power to do so. Meanwhile, Lincoln did have power over slaves in “border states,” such as Kentucky. But to keep slave owners in those states from joining the rebellion, Lincoln’s proclamation allowed the bond- age of blacks there to continue. The proclamation was draft- ed and the Cabinet knew it would be issued, but Lincoln waited for a military victory be- fore taking even this half step toward complete emancipation. ‘THENCEFORTH AND FOREVER’ It wasn’t until September, af- ter a quasi-victory at Antietam, that the government decreed that as of Jan. 1, 1863, slaves in rebel states were “then thence- forward and forever free.” In the abolitionist strong- holds of the Northeast, the proclamation was greeted warmly. But in what is now the Midwest, it was dispar- aged for making the war more about ending slavery than about putting down the rebel- lion in the South. More importantly, perhaps, it stopped the great powers of England and France from recognizing the Confederacy as a legitimate government. Doing so would have been an enormous boost to Confeder- ate fortunes. And while Lincoln had obvi- ous practical reasons for issuing the proclamation, it was a turn- ing point in the Civil War and Lincoln’s understanding of it. He always had thought the war eventually would extin- guish slavery. But the procla- mation and the atmosphere it created put slavery’s extinction — and possibly the Union’s victory — on a fast track. ‘CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT’ By the summer of 1863, as a consequence of Lincoln’s changed thinking, more than 30 black regiments were under arms and 14 were ready for battle. The following year, Lincoln came under pressure to revoke emancipation to get the South to rejoin the Union, but he refused. He said he couldn’t break faith with the thousands of black soldiers who’d fought and died for their freedom. So, when they gather at Ashton Villa in June, Galves- tonians won’t be re-enacting history. But they’ll be com- memorating something the 16th President would say is far more important. Ultimately for Lincoln, eman- cipation gave the war a higher purpose. Renowned Lincoln scholar David Herbert Donald wrote that eventually Lincoln came to think of the proclama- tion as the “crowning achieve- ment” of his presidency. 4 | The Daily News | Juneteenth | 2023 By Kathryn Eastburn Correspondent A raminta Coleman Sorrell, proprietor and guide of Juneteenth and Beyond, grew up going to first-rate museums, including the Smithsonian museums in Washington, D.C., where she grew up. “These are the institutions that others measure themselves against, and I can tell you that the sites here in Galveston are on par with the ones in D.C.,” Sorrell said. “I’m never con- cerned over whether people will enjoy their tour here.” In her travels around the country as a Ph.D. education specialist working for Johns Hopkins University, Sorrell always sought out Black history tours and found fine ones in cities like De- troit and Los Angeles. But when she started coming to Galveston in 2006, she discovered there were no dedicat- ed Black history tours in the birthplace of Juneteenth, a key event in Afri- can-American history. In 2021, Sorrell began working through the process of setting up a professional tour company — getting a chauffeur’s license, applying for permits required by the city — and this year received a development grant from the Park Board of Trustees to kick-start her project, designed to ap- peal to visitors tuned in to Galveston’s unique African-American history. Her Juneteenth Freedom Trail Tour, offered now through July 9, starts at Old Central Cultural Center, 2627 Ave. M, where visitors, before boarding Sor- rell’s custom van, will learn about the former Central High School, the first African-American high school in Texas and what that meant to freed people yearning to be educated. “Then we’ll talk about Jack Johnson, the boxing legend, and his parents who’d been released from slavery, and we’ll talk about what happened be- yond Juneteenth to people like them,” Sorrell said. From there, the Freedom Trail Tour advances to Harborside Drive and 21st Street to view the Middle Pas- sage marker commemorating Africans entrapped in the slave trade. A discus- sion of how slavery came to Texas and the role of the island port in the slave trade will follow. At 22nd Street and Strand, the tour will turn to the “Absolute Equality” mural and Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops’ arrival in Galveston to announce Executive Order No. 3, freeing enslaved people two years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proc- lamation, the event igniting Juneteenth celebrations from 1865 to now. A tour of the Nia Cultural Center’s current exhibits follows, then a visit to peek in the windows of Ashton Vil- la, built by enslaved people, and the Blank Slate monument currently on display behind it. All along the way, Sorrell, who is certified to teach in the state of Texas, will put on her educator cap, answer- ing and encouraging questions and discussion of African-American history and Galveston’s contribution. “I didn’t know anything about June- teenth until I married my husband, a Texan, and moved here,” she said. “It’s a great story that shows the march toward democracy in this country and how the addition of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution opened the doors for democracy, vot- ing rights and freedom for all people. So much came from that awful, ugly history of slavery.” A co-chair of the Galveston United Juneteenth Alliance, working to estab- lish a Juneteenth museum in Galveston, Sorrell joins a legion of people who’ve worked hard to tell the true history of African Americans in Texas. Her Freedom Trail Tour wraps up at Reedy Chapel, a sacred space to discuss some of the difficult aspects of that history. “We’ll talk about the determination of African Americans to find their rela- tives after slavery, to get an education, to have legalized marriages to do what they had to do to be citizens with all the rights and privileges of Americans,” she said. “We’ll talk about why it took two-and-a-half years longer for Texans to be freed. What’s up with that? “This information is not obvious,” Sorrell said. “Somebody has to teach these things.” To learn more or to book a tour, visit www.juneteenthandbeyond.com. Take a walk through Galveston’s African-American history tour STUART VILLANUEVA/The Daily News photos (Left) Araminta Sorrell speaks about the significance of Juneteenth while guiding a tour group at the “Absolute Equality” mural in downtown Galveston on June 6. (Right) Members of a tour group enter the historic Reedy Chapel A.M.E. Church in Galveston on June 6.2023 | Juneteenth | The Daily News | 5 OPEN YEAR ROUND AT THE 1859 ASHTON VILLA CARRIAGE HOUSE OPEN DAILY ALL JUNE Thursday - Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Sunday, noon - 5 p.m. .......................................................... 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TheGrand.com | 409.765.1894 2020 Postoffice Street, Galveston Original 5th Dimensions in Up, Up & Away! a musical fable Saturday, June 17 | 8 PM Don’t miss the seven-time Grammy Award- winning duo known as “The First Couple of Pop & Soul” renowned for their classics like “You Don’t Have to Be A Star,” “Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In,” and, of course, “Up, Up & Away!” THEPOWEROFTHEPALM RECOGNITION RESTORATION CELEBRATION FREEDOMFORALLPEOPLE WEALTHMANAGEMENTANDTRUSTPERSONALBANKING BUSINESSBANKINGCOMMERCIALLENDING . . 409-945-5539 Fax (409) 945-5835 www.robcoservices.com Robco FACILITY SERVICES2023 | Juneteenth | The Daily News | 7 Pageant crowns Ms. Juneteenth 2023 By Kathryn Eastburn Correspondent T he Juneteenth Development Inc. Scholarship Gala, popularly referred to as the Ms. June- teenth pageant, was held on June 4 at Galveston’s Old Central Cultural Center, 2627 Ave. M, in front of its largest audience in recent years. Dorothy Brown started the competition back in 1992 and still runs the event that kicks off Juneteenth festivities in the place where Juneteenth originated. “Oh, my goodness, we had a turnout last night,” Brown ex- ulted by phone the day after. “It was so beautiful! Our girls performed so well.” Madison Swain, 18, a recent graduate of Texas City High School, took home the crown. She will use the scholarship money she won to attend Blinn College in Brenham where she was recruited by the award-winning Bucca- neers Dance Team. At Texas City, Swain served as colonel of the school’s Stingarettes Drill Team. “To me, the gala and win- ning it goes back to our history,” Swain said. “I feel like I made history even though there have been many more Ms. Juneteenths before me and so many all over the country. I feel like I get to create my legacy by becoming a dance teacher and being a role mod- el to girls.” Asked by judges how she handles disappointment, Swain responded from a place of experience, having unsuc- cessfully competed in last year’s gala then returning this year to win. “I gained a lot of my self-confidence back,” Swain said. “I told them that when I’m disappointed, I try to think about which things I can do better. I look at disappoint- ment as a way to grow.” That spirit of opportunity, determination and accomplish- ment permeates Juneteenth which, last year, was declared a national holiday following over 150 years of family and community celebrations across Texas and the U.S., commem- orating the announcement in Galveston on June 19, 1865, that enslaved Black people in Texas were finally free. As Ms. Juneteenth, Swain will heed the call of the or- ganization by participating in other events such as the an- nual Juneteenth parade on the island as well as speaking to young people at schools and churches when requested by the Nia Cultural Center. Galveston County young women ages 17 to 22 are eligible to apply for the scholarship gala, and all fees and funds raised go toward a scholarship at the school of their choice. The purpose of the organization is to cele- brate the heritage of June- teenth in Galveston. For Swain, that heritage is the drive toward excellence she witnessed in her sister pageant participants, girls she hesitates to call competitors. “It’s an intense process,” she said. For two months prior to the gala, participants review ques- tions they might be asked, get their formal wear approved, and practice their talent and presentation under the guid- ance of mentors, some of them previous contestants. “We were together every week over months and got to bond, to become friends,” Swain said. “The other girls were super good. Everybody had talent and everybody deserved it. I just had to make myself better. “It was exciting to see our hard work pay off.” Courtesy/Maureen Beans The Ms. Juneteenth pageant contestants stand with organizer Dorothy Brown on June 4 at Galveston’s Old Central Cultural Center, 2627 Ave. M. Courtesy/Cynthia L. Wilson Ms. Juneteenth 2022, organizer Dorothy Brown and newly crowned Ms. Juneteenth 2023 Madison Swain.8 | The Daily News | Juneteenth | 2023 Galveston • Pearland • League City • Friendswood • Alvin • www.HomeTown.Bank OOOOO Five-Star “Superior” rating by BauerFinancial, Inc., awarded June, 2023 OOOOO Juneteenth has special meaning to us locally, both because it was in Galveston that Major General Gordon Granger read the proclamation announcing freedom for slaves on June 19, 1865, and because so many local citizens worked together to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Celebrate American freedom for all with us, and thank those whose work succeeded in making the day a national event. COASTAL COMMUNITY FEDERAL CREDIT UNION IS PROUD TO COMMEMORATE THE 158TH ANNIVERSARY OF JUNETEENTH Protect the life you’ve built. Have any other coverage needs? 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The point is to get dressed up and enjoy a formal ball in shoes that promise to keep you comfortable, dancing and celebrating all night long. Sponsored by the Galveston Council of Greeks, an asso- ciation of historically Black sorority and fraternity alumnus dedicated to public service, this premiere event on June 18 at the Moody Gardens Ho- tel promises to enhance the camaraderie of the Juneteenth experience while raising money to preserve the Old Central Cultural Center, formerly the site of Texas’ first African-Amer- ican high school, and to enrich scholarship funds. “We’re hoping to raise up- wards of $50K this first time,” said LaShica Velazquez, public- ity chair for the event, a Texas Southern alumni and member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc. – Beta Phi Omega chapter. Alpha Kappa Alpha this win- ter hosted its 37th annual Mardi Gras gala on the island, raising more than $100,000 with over 850 guests. “Our hope for the Juneteenth Sneaker Ball is to meet the council’s attendance goal of 500-plus people.” That Mardi Gras event caught the attention of Alex Thomas, product development man- ager for Visit Galveston, who approached the council and suggested a sneaker ball might be the right project for the orga- nization that had been meeting to plan a Juneteenth event for a year. The Greek Council applied for a portion of the $100,000 the Park Board of Trustees dedicated to helping fund Juneteenth events and, about a month ago, was approved. “Last year at the Park Board, we talked about support for Juneteenth,” Thomas said. “We wanted to share resources to up- lift events in the city, to increase Juneteenth tourism and build educational awareness around how important the holiday is.” A plan to allocate $100,000 was approved, and discussions ensued about what kind of events could allow visitors to have lots of things to do when they visited the island to cele- brate the holiday. “We talked about bringing in some new events we hav- en’t had before and a sneaker ball was one,” he said. “It’s a great addition to Juneteenth activities.” The idea is to bring June- teenth visitors to Galveston for an entire weekend of activities, not just an afternoon’s worth. “The ultimate goal is to create sustainable events, then by 2025, the 160-year anniver- sary of Juneteenth, we’ll be positioned to get corporate sponsors,” Thomas said. “From a product development stand- point, you can’t talk about Juneteenth without talking about Galveston. And you have to give people great opportu- nities to participate in while they’re here.” The first ever Juneteenth Sneaker Ball is open to the pub- lic, not just Greeks, Velazquez emphasized, and will launch what is envisioned to be a major annual fundraiser for Galveston’s most famous native holiday, now a national holiday. The grant has enabled planners to take social media promotion nationwide and to purchase radio spots to spread the word. “We want to work along with the city so that in two years we will have established this as a go-to weekend,” Velazquez said. “We want people to come to Galveston for Juneteenth week- end and stay for a collaborative, capstone event.” Rooms are blocked at Moody Gardens for the June 18 week- end offering discounted rates. “We want people to make it a weekend, to get a sense of Galveston, then party with a purpose,” Velazquez said. To purchase tickets and to learn more, visit www. visitgalveston.com/events/ juneteenth-sneaker-ball/ or call 713-302-3107. Tickets are $85 per person or $850 for a table for 10. Put on your dancing sneakers Inaugural Juneteenth Sneaker Ball supports Galveston Council of Greeks “We want people to come to Galveston for Juneteenth weekend and stay for a collaborative, capstone event.” LaShica VelazquezNext >