The Martha’s Vineyard Camp Association (MVCA) commemorated Juneteenth with its fourth annual ceremonial flag raising outside of the Tabernacle in Oak Bluffs on Thursday morning, kick-starting a series of celebrations throughout Martha’s Vineyard.
About 60 people took in speeches from community leaders before the Juneteenth flag was hoisted.
“Today offers an important opportunity for us in the community of the campground, in the community of Oak Bluffs and in the greater Martha’s Vineyard community, to come together, as we’re doing now,” said MVCA Board of Directors President Sherrie Saint-Amant. “There’s so many other events in the next couple of days to reflect on freedom, resilience and the pursuit of equity.”
Juneteenth memorializes when the last enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas learned about the abolition of slavery on June 19, 1865. The news came two years after the Emancipation Proclamation’s passage. In 2021, Former President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday.
Dr. Lorna Chambers-Andrade, a member of the Martha’s Vineyard branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and local nonprofit the Cottagers in Oak Bluffs, said that the theme of this year’s Juneteenth celebration is happy resilience. While addressing the gathering, Dr. Chambers-Andrade emphasized the necessity of recognizing hardships of the past and present in order to rejoice.
“You cannot have joy and justice until you have dealt with the pain; the pain that we’ve encountered, the pain that we’re encountering now. Remember, slaves built the White House,” she said.
Other speakers at the ceremony included co-founder and trustee of the Martha’s Vineyard Diversity Coalition, Bob Tankard, and local performer Jaimie Harris, who performed a reading of the poem “Fury and Faith” by Amanda Gorman. There was also a group singing of James Weldon Johnson’s hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” often called the “Black National Anthem.” The raising of the Juneteenth flag followed.
Director of outreach for the Martha’s Vineyard African-American Heritage Trail Larry Jones, who assisted in raising the Juneteenth flag Thursday, reflected on the flag’s symbolic significance.
“The [Emancipation] Proclamation empowered over 3 million enslaved Americans to the status of freedom from legal bondage bonded by the law,” he said. “We raise this flag as a symbol of freedom.”
Decanda Faulk, a nurse and attorney from Delaware, travelled to celebrate Juneteenth on the Island for the first time. She said that today’s ceremony “fulfilled her desires.”
“We still must fight, we still must march forward and we have to band together,” she told The Times. “Unless everyone’s free, I don’t feel like I can really appreciate and enjoy my freedom. There’s a lot more work to do.”
On the list of events to celebrate the holiday, there is the Taste of Juneteenth on Sunday, a special service at Union Chapel, and a fashion show at MV Salad’s. MV Times columnist Sharisse Scott-Rawlins has a run down of events here.
