‘This is history for me’: DeKalb community celebrates Juneteenth with block party

DeKALB – Tammie Williams-Shered said she first moved to DeKalb County in 1966, with multiple generations in her family living in the area since then.

Williams-Shered said she initially came to DeKalb’s first Juneteenth celebration block party to support her daughter working at the event but stayed for the fun. She said she’s hoping for more of these events to happen in the county in the future.

“So this is history for me,” Shered said.

Shered was one of many in the crowd that attended the community Juneteenth celebration and block party hosted by New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, the NIU Center for Black Studies and B.L.L.A.C.K. Inc. NFP. The event ran from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday at the corner of Hillcrest and Blackhawk, where the old Campus Cinema once stood, in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood.

ExpandAutoplay

Image 1 of 7

Temeka Booker and her daughter Zoey Bishop, 12, from Zoomba By Temeka in Naperville, run a class Saturday afternoon during a Juneteenth celebration near the site of the old Campus Cinema building in DeKalb. The event was sponsored by New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, the NIU Center for Black Studies and B.L.L.A.C.K. Inc. NFP. (Mark Busch/Mark Busch - mbusch@shawmedia.co)

The event included music, food, free haircuts from area barbers, a mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic giving out free Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson vaccines, voter registration tables and social services information, along with other activities. Event organizers said during the event the goal is to make the celebration and block party an annual event in the city.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when enslaved Black people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom by Union soldiers 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed and two months after the Confederacy had surrendered. The day is also known as Emancipation Day and Freedom Day. The enslaved were not fully free, however, until later in the year when the 13th Amendment was ratified.

The day, recognized for generations by Black Americans, has entered more widely into the mainstream in past years, amplified by a summer of nationwide protests and racial reckoning renewed in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis by former police officer Derek Chauvin, and in 2021, as governing bodies sought to formalize the holiday.

Kavon Wright of DeKalb said he came to the event with his brother Bryton Rimmer, also of DeKalb. Wright said it wasn’t that long ago that Black people were enslaved in the country.

“So now it’s just like a celebration,” Wright said. “We can actually enjoy ourselves and have fun and people can continue to be themselves. That’s what [the holiday] means to me.”

Some Juneteenth event attendees also took the opportunity to join a Zumba class at the event, including event coordinator Jessica Webb, who also is part of the leadership council for B.L.L.A.C.K. Inc.

Webb said the event to her is a way to educate the community about the holiday’s meaning and to celebrate Black culture overall. She said she was glad to see dozens of people from throughout the county attend the event in the city’s Annie Glidden North neighborhood, which sometimes get a bad reputation.

“Everybody coming together under one roof, especially in this area, is a big deal,” Webb said.

On Wednesday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 3922, officially recognizing Juneteenth as National Freedom Day in Illinois. The new law will take effect Jan. 1, 2022, and will make June 19 a paid day off for all state employees and a school holiday when it falls on a weekday.

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday voted, 415-14, to make Juneteenth the 12th federal holiday. President Joe Biden signed the bill into law Thursday. Juneteenth will be the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr. Day was created in 1983.

Rimmer said he believes it’s important to include Black history when learning about American history. He said he thought making Juneteenth a national holiday was a good first step in the right direction in acknowledging racism in the country.

“But that does not address the fact that we’re not allowed to talk about race issues,” Rimmer said.

Webb said she believes making Juneteenth a state and federal holiday is a good idea for educational purposes. She cited the lack of awareness about the Tulsa, Oklahoma, Black Wall Street massacre until it was mentioned in mainstream television shows “Watchmen” and “Lovecraft Country” as a prime example of the importance of observing Juneteenth.

However, Webb said she’s concerned that it would eventually be treated as just another day off from school or work.

“I don’t want us to forget why it passed,” Webb said.