Juneteenth and Fourth of July during America 250: A time for Long Islanders to reflect

For Tijuana Fulford, Juneteenth is a reminder of what "freedom feels like." So, this Friday, as the nation celebrates the federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery, her community nonprofit organization will host a celebration in Riverhead featuring soul food delights, a bouncy house and face painting.

That celebration this week will be a jubilee of joy and healing, followed by another for the Fourth of July. As the daughter of a Marine who fought for the United States, she said, she can’t untwine what the two holidays represent — one that speaks to America’s promise, and the other the conclusion of one of the nation’s darkest chapters.

On "Juneteenth, we can celebrate the fact that America wove our story into her fabric, and then on the Fourth of July we can celebrate our freedom as an American," she said.

Juneteenth, which is considered a second Independence Day, is an acknowledgment that the ideals of equality and liberty proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence in 1776 did not extend to people in bondage on the same land.

And so, Juneteenth this year holds special significance as the nation marks its Semiquincentennial. It is a reminder of what America promised, and a celebration of the fact that the formerly enslaved might be able to partake in that assurance, several Long Islanders told Newsday.

Elaine Gross, the president and founder of ERASE Racism, said she plans to attend a vigil at her church on Juneteenth and then spend the afternoon walking and reflecting. She said celebrating the holiday comes with a set of challenges this year.

"It comes at a time when there are so many actions at the federal level to reduce the freedom of African Americans, and a lot of other people too," Gross said.

Phil Andrews, the founding president of 100 Black Men Eastern New York, said Juneteenth, ahead of America 250, is a reminder to consider what more progress can be made. Still, he said he feels the two holidays don't conflict. 

"How I celebrate it, it’s a time for reflection, for me to look back on all the things that have happened in my life, and also my ancestors," Andrews said, adding: "It also gives me the impetus to look at what I need to be doing today based on the historical context of what’s going on today."

Fulford, the founder and executive director of the nonprofit The Butterfly Effect Project, said Juneteenth this year highlights the fight for equity and change.

"I can hold America accountable for that declaration, and the reason that is so important to me is that Juneteenth allowed me the opportunity to really hold her accountable," Fulford said in a phone interview.

The roots of Juneteenth lie in a time when the very foundations of the nation were shaken by the Civil War. Amid the fighting between the Union and Confederacy, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which freed enslaved people in states that were rebelling.

But the reality of liberation took a circuitous route for some enslaved people who should have been freed, including in parts of Texas, according to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Nearly two years after the proclamation, freedom came for the enslaved in Galveston Bay, Texas, with the arrival of roughly 2,000 Union troops on June 19, 1865.

The military announced that roughly a quarter of a million enslaved people there were freed — a moment when the promise of the Declaration of Independence was closer to being real. 

The declaration, a creed adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, reads: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 

Yet, when the document was signed, roughly one in five people on this land were enslaved — highlighting a paradox between ideals and reality that would be pointed out for years to come, researchers and historians wrote.

In 1852, Frederick Douglass, the famed abolitionist who escaped slavery, posited in a speech: "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?"

Later, Martin Luther King Jr. called upon the language of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence in his "I Have a Dream" speech, saying that the framers were "signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir."

"It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned," he added.

Adam Rothman, a Georgetown University historian whose research focuses on slavery and its legacies, said the two holidays coincide to signify different meanings of American ideals. Juneteenth, he said, exposes the shortfall between ideals and reality at the founding of the United States.

"I think Juneteenth highlights the ordeal of freedom in the United States, the gradual and rather bloody process of expanding the magic circle of rights to as many people as possible," Rothman said.

This year, across Long Island, thousands of people are expected to attend Juneteenth events, enjoying cookouts, festivals, and other celebrations. Among them is  Long Island’s Annual Juneteenth Cultural Festival on Saturday at the Hicksville LIRR station parking lot.

Coming to the Table, a Greenport-based civic organization that the Rev. Natalie Wimberly helped found in 2020, hosts an annual Juneteenth parade and celebration, which will take place Saturday. The parade begins at Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church, where Wimberly is the pastor.

"Our celebration is one of words, songs, dance and drumming," Wimberly said. "It’s a festival of sorts, an expression of freedom and community, and so with the singing and the dancing, we’re hoping people will join together in this world, this toxic world that we’re living in, that we can have some joy."

Wimberly said the holiday represents the beginning of civil rights advancements in the United States.

"It was a moment in time of our history that basic human civil rights were finally acknowledged to some degree. It was the time that people finally heard the words that they are forever free, but yet was not fully actualized, and it still hasn’t been, because when you think about the civil rights movement and the protest movement and what has transpired in this country, and where we are now, politically, socially, I don’t see that."

In Roosevelt, Joyfest is seeking to strike a balance between freedom and community, even though Nassau County does not recognize Juneteenth. The event, which will be hosted by the nonprofit So Rich in Community, set for Thursday, will feature art installations, mindfulness and wellness activations, and food trucks.

Richard Paul, founder of the nonprofit, said Juneteenth shows that the fight for freedom and liberty is far beyond the American Revolutionary War. He called Juneteenth America’s "most authentic" because "it’s an American holiday that speaks the truth."

"There was still a fight for freedom, there was still a fight for rights, and to be treated as humans," he said.