By Bernard W. Carr
A notable celebration was held in the town of Bridgeville to recognize Juneteenth Day, first declared a federal holiday by President Joe Biden after signing legislation on June 17, 2021. The official holiday is named Juneteenth National Independence Day and is celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. Other names for Juneteenth include, Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Black Independence Day, and Juneteenth Independence Day. Juneteenth is a combination of the words June and 19.
In 1863, during the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared more than three million enslaved people living in the Confederate states were free. (Chattel slavery remained legal in border states such as Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia, loyal to the Union, until the passage of the 13th Amendment, which officially abolished slavery everywhere in the U.S. Rebelling states such as Texas weren’t ready to give up slavery. Texas had remained relatively untouched and unbothered throughout the war because it was the furthest west of any Confederate state at the time. It was not until some 2,000 Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865, and were able to enforce the edict that the enslaved Black residents of the state were free under the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation. It was through Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger’s General Order No. 3 that the enslaved learned that slavery had been abolished in the Confederate states. The order read, in part: “ The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a Proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
Bryana Harris, 9, from Bridgeville, leads the audience in a rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” written by James Weldon Johnson.
As Black Texans moved around the country and spread the word about Juneteenth, many other communities in the U.S. began to celebrate the day as well, with prayer and religious services, parades, speeches, educational events, family gatherings and cook-outs, and festivals with music, dancing, and cultural food. The first official Juneteenth celebration took place in Texas in 1866, and the first official Emancipation Park was established in Houston in 1872. Hence, in 2025, there were many celebrations around the area in the state of Delaware.
On Wednesday evening, June 18, the Heritage Shores Lifestyles Committee sponsored its first-ever annual Juneteenth Celebration in the main ballroom. The event was hosted by residents Annette Cottrell and Cassandra “Casey” Ogden. One hundred and sixty people and three vendors (Jenkins Jewels, King’s Closette LLC, and CED Designs, LLC), attended the event. According to Cottrell, “The purpose of the event was to bring awareness to an important day in American history that has been overlooked and left out of the history books. This community has grown tremendously, and it is more diverse than when I moved here 13 years ago.”
The program began with the National Anthem, the “Star Spangled Banner” written by American poet Francis Scott Key in 1814 and sung by Robin Snowden, and followed by the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing” written by James Weldon Johnson in 1900 and sung by nine year-old Bridgeville resident Bryana Harris. “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was adopted by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) as its official song. The song was written as a poem. It was performed for the first time by 500 school children in celebration of President Abraham Lincoln’s birthday on Feb. 12, 1900. The song still resonates today as a powerful hymn within the Black community.
A brief video overview of Juneteenth was shown afterwards, along with a short trivia contest. Each table had 20 seconds to answer a trivia question from the previously shown video. LaToya Harris, CEO of the non-profit organization Cornerstone Community Center in Bridgeville, performed a liturgical dance to the song, “Glory”, written by Hip-Hop Artist, Common. The song was created specifically for a movie entitled SELMA in 2014 which portrays the 1965 civil rights protest march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. The next presentation was a Juneteenth poem written by William Rhem and read by Heritage Shores residents Doug Singleton and James Bailey.
The last few lines of the poem read as follows, “As creators of life, our stories will be told to manifest our hearts desires of love and compassion. For all human kind, on this day of freedom, let us recognize the beauty in our struggles, the resilience in our eyes. Let us celebrate Juneteenth with honor and pride.”
The host then encouraged the audience to visit their neighbors at each adjoining table with a smile and a greeting. Afterwards, music was played and the crowd danced with each other, hugged, and shook hands.
When given the question of what does Juneteenth mean to you, the youngest person in the room, Bryana Harris responded “Juneteenth means if not for the Emancipation Proclamation here’s a possibility that I would not be free, but thanks to them I am free today and I am glad about that, so Juneteenth means a lot to me. It means that I’m just happy to be here and not a slave.”
In honor of the Juneteenth holiday, a traditional southern meal of fried chicken, ribs, collard greens, and mac-n-cheese was provided, along with red velvet cake and ice-cream. A fruit platter was also provided with strawberries, grapes, watermelon and various cheeses and crackers. The event ended with dancing and music provided by On the Edge band.
Dr. Opal Lee is a retired educator, counselor, and activist, is known for her strenuous work which most credit for the holiday becoming law, so much so that she is described as the “Grandmother of Juneteenth”. Lee campaigned for decades to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. She promoted the idea by leading 2.5 mile walks each year, representing the 2.5 years it took for news of the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas. At the age of 89, she conducted a symbolic walk from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C. in September 2016, arriving in 2017. In June 2021, at the age of 94, a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday was passed by Congress and signed into law.
Juneteenth is the oldest African American holiday celebrated in the U.S.
