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State Senator John Sullivan (D-Rushville) speaks during the ceremony at the 3rd annual Juneteenth Festival Celebration Saturday in Chandler Park. Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom and marks the official end of slavery. For more on Juneteenth, turn to pages 4 and 5.

Third-annual Juneteenth celebration 'a success'

By: Zach Wingerter

Posted: 6/23/05

Chandler Park was full of culture last Saturday as Macomb's third-annual Juneteenth Festival Celebration brought both young and old out to celebrate the end of slavery.

Macomb Mayor Mick Wisslead and Western Illinois University President Al Goldfarb proclaimed June 19 to be citywide "Juneteenth Day."

"It was a success," said Belinda Carr, director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center. "Overall the celebration was wonderful. The attendance keeps going up every year. The idea is to get the campus and community together - I think we accomplished that goal."

"The whole Juneteenth in and of itself is a celebration that rolls out of slavery. Slaves in Texas found out they were free two years after the rest of the country," Carr said. "It celebrates freedom and helps us understand freedom. It's not meant to replace the Fourth of July, but we recognize it as freedom of African-American slaves."

The Juneteenth celebration kicked off with a ceremony at 5 p.m. Paul Kreider, College of Fine Arts and Communication dean, was the master of ceremony. After Vera Miller of the Faith Deliverance Holiness Apostolic Church led a prayer, Ella Worthington from Decatur, led the audience in a song.

Joseph Rallo, Western's Provost, spoke on behalf of Wisslead and Goldfarb, who were unable to attend.

After Dawn Blackman told a story about her youth and growing up, Illinois Sen. John Sullivan came up to say a few words.

"As I look out over this crowd ... it reminds me of when I'm sitting on the Senate floor and looking at the people that I serve with," Sullivan said in his speech during Saturday afternoon's ceremony. "There's men, there's women, there's blacks, whites, Latinos, Hispanics ... every background, every occupation. It's really a reflection of this state and, of course, quite frankly this nation as well."

"When we all come together as a body, 59 senators sitting on the floor in the Illinois Senate at the capitol, when we come together as a body and we put our minds and our hearts and our souls together to try to correct something that's not right in the state, we can make huge accomplishments, great gains, huge strides and it's just a matter of bringing people together and that's what this event has done today."

Western senior English major Gregory Pickett came up next to perform two original spoken-word pieces, which he explains as poetry not meant to be read, but rather performed. Before he started his second piece, "The Work Song," Pickett told the audience to appreciate the slaves' work songs because those are the roots of modern-day jazz and blues.

Essie Rutledge, professor of sociology, then delivered the final speech of the night.

The Macomb community was very helpful in making Juneteenth a success. "About 95 percent of the food and beverages were donated by merchants in Macomb," Carr said. People showed up at the park to help because they saw advertisements asking for volunteers in local newspapers, she added.

Many community volunteer organizations had tables set up in the park. Ardith Thorpe had an African-American crafts table set up for the third consecutive year and said this year was even better than the past two. Thorpe helped children make bookmarks, crosses and necklaces.

"(Juneteenth) promotes unity for all races and nationalities to come together in an environment that is both educational and fun," Carr said. In the future, Carr would like to tap into the educational section a bit further.

"We'd like to involve the community more," Carr said. "We'd like to go into the school district in May and have a literary contest and have prizes for students who write about Juneteenth and why it's important."