SWAMPSCOTT — The town held its first-ever Juneteenth celebration Thursday, complete with music, lawn games, food, a flag raising and speaker program.
Residents, many dressed in the black, green and red of the pan-African flag, came out in droves to the event, which was held outside of the Town Hall. They were there to honor the day of June 19, 1865, when the last enslaved Black people in Texas learned that slavery had been outlawed in the United States.
“Joy and resistance are one and the same,” said Tamy-Feé Meneide, Swampscott’s critical partner in diversity, equity and inclusion. “To resist the omnipresent, the intrusive, the pervasive nature of white supremacy, we must also allow ourselves to be rebelliously joyous.”
Meneide noted that the United States Congress this week approved a bill that would make Juneteenth a national holiday. The bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden later that day.
Town Administrator Sean Fitzgerald spoke to attendees about the importance of freedom and acknowledging the country’s history of oppression. He praised the town for working toward eradicating inequality.
“Today is a day of thoughtful celebration and appreciation of the American dream and all of those dreams that were deferred for so long,” he said. “While we celebrate emancipation and freedom of Black and brown Americans, we all must recognize the structural legacy of slavery is reflected in inequalities, wages and wealth, and healthcare, and housing, education, economic opportunities including treatment by law enforcement on a local, state and federal level.”
Several local residents performed at the event, including musician Philip Alexander Bereaud who played a song titled “Take You Along” and a group of Swampscott Middle School students who read a poem about the holiday. During the flag-raising ceremony, Sacha Rae sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn the NAACP refers to as the Black national anthem.
Resident Ralph Edwards gave a speech titled “Juneteenth and the Big Lie.” In it, he spoke about famed abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who once lived in Lynn. He said that Douglass called out the hypocrisy of the Declaration of Independence in its claim that all men were created equal while Black people were still enslaved.
Edwards said that the country’s history, especially during the post-Civil War Reconstruction era which ended with the rise of the KKK, shows that the community needs to constantly work at creating a more welcoming world.
“Every generation has to work to maintain these gains,” he said. “We need to do our work and take responsibility to uphold American ideals. This democracy is an experiment. It only works if we work.”