10 years after Nevada bill, Juneteenth ‘is
going to free the world’
Former Nevada Assemblyman Harvey Munford speaks to the
Review-Journal about the 10th anniversary of the passage of his bill to
recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday at his home in Las Vegas, Monday, May
10, 2021. (Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @rookie__rae
Former Nevada Assemblyman Harvey Munford speaks to the
Review-Journal about the 10th anniversary of the passage of his bill to
recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday at his home in Las Vegas, Monday, May
10, 2021. (Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @rookie__rae
Former Nevada Assemblyman Harvey Munford speaks to the
Review-Journal and Dee Evans, president of Juneteenth Nevada, about the 10th
anniversary of the passage of his bill to recognize Juneteenth as a state
holiday and the ongoing efforts to make it a national holiday at his home in
Las Vegas, Monday, May 10, 2021. (Rachel Aston/Las Vegas Review-Journal)
@rookie__rae
May 28,
2021 - 6:04 pm
Updated
May 29, 2021 - 10:00 am
With the passage of a state law 10
years ago, Nevada began
officially observing Juneteenth, memorializing the end of slavery in the U.S.
Former Nevada Assemblyman Harvey Munford, the
2011 bill’s primary sponsor, recently recalled that he was “excited” to
introduce the legislation.
As a local educator for more than three decades,
he had been particularly struck by the prospect that Juneteenth Day could serve
as a long-term teaching tool.
“We should know the true history of America,” he
said.
Juneteenth, which is now formally recognized in
49 states and the District of Columbia, commemorates June 19, 1865. It is when
remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas — a state defying the end of enslavement
ordered by the Emancipation Proclamation nearly three years earlier — were
notified of their freedom by Union soldiers.
For advocates, such as Munford, 80, Juneteenth
extends beyond recognition of a historical moment. It is a movement that calls
for year-round education about the broad and personal experiences of African
Americans in the U.S. and the celebration of their freedom and achievements.
“You have to know where you’ve been to know
where you’re going,” said Dee Evans, a prominent statewide advocate. “And
Juneteenth kind of illustrates that.”
Evans, the founder and CEO of Juneteenth Nevada,
one of many state-based affiliates of the National Juneteenth Observance
Foundation across the country, first approached Munford in roughly 2006 about
officially recognizing the day in Nevada.
The legislative advocacy is not over, however:
There is an ongoing push to make Juneteenth a federal holiday and a Senate bill and House resolution introduced
in February to do so is co-sponsored by four members of Nevada’s federal
delegation.
“We need people to understand that Juneteenth is
for everybody,” Evans said. “1776 freed the country, Juneteenth is going to
free the world.”
Stories
hard to come by
While reflection is a critical tenet to the
movement, it is also complicated on a deeply personal level: Families from the
south, at least in Evans and Munford’s experiences, can be reluctant to pass on
stories of strife to next generations.
“We did not talk about it,” said Evans, who had
learned through research that her mother’s family came to St. Louis and
Illinois in the 1890s after six family members were lynched in the Memphis
area.
“My grandfather told me to study the family
history but even he didn’t tell me the story,” she added. “He didn’t tell me he
changed his name.”
Munford’s grandfather was born 10 years after
Juneteenth and his mother was born in 1918 in Birmingham, Alabama. But Munford
grew up in Ohio.
“They were so happy to come to the north and
they didn’t want to ruin us thinking about how it was in the south,” he said.
Curing a
wound
Evans suggested that the misguided notion has
been to not speak about anything if it is bad, as if it did not happen.
“You cannot cure a wound unless you open it up
and drain the poison out,” she said. “You cannot know that you can achieve
unless you know it’s been done, unless you have the confidence, unless you have
the discipline, the respect of yourself as well as your family members. We lost
a lot of that.”
But as much as the effort is about tracing
African-American history, personal or not, it is also often correcting it,
“because so many of the stories that you hear are not true,” she said.
She believes it is important to set the record
straight, from the minor but pertinent details of how the slaves in Galveston
were freed, to the erasure of Black inventors who never received proper credit
for their work.
Steve Williams, the president of the National
Juneteenth Observance Foundation, said he wished that more people understood
that Juneteenth is ultimately about self-reliance. He said when slaves in
Galveston were told they were free, they heard it from Black Union troops.
“The self-agency of the delivery of freedom is
the first thing you have to understand,” he said.
Tied to
social justice
Williams also said that Juneteenth has always
been a part of the social justice movement and thus “it’s extremely critical to
what’s happening today.”
This period of unrest and action over racism and
the killings of Black people by police officers has “brought us to the
forefront,” Evans said, noting that her phones were ringing off the hook after
George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.
“It gave us the opportunity to educate, to
discuss, to bring it out in the open,” she said.
Evans arrived in Las Vegas in 2005 from Chicago,
where she had been introduced to the Juneteenth movement by the late Rev.
Ronald V. Myers, the founder of the national organization. Now she said the
mission is embedded in her and she feels compelled to share it, particularly
for her grandchildren’s sake.
Full
slate of events
Educational outreach will serve as the backdrop
of a series of events set in June throughout Southern Nevada leading up to June
19, including flag raisings, workshops, unity walks and art and musical
entertainment.
The Rainbow Dreams Educational Foundation is
also hosting the 20th annual Las Vegas Juneteenth Festival at Kianga Isoke
Palacio Park on June 19.
“There’s enough Juneteenth for everybody,” Evans
said.
Juneteenth Nevada, which is funded largely out
of pocket and by small donors, also plans to recognize pioneers in the Historic
Westside and record the oral history of residents in the area, she said.
“It’s not just our history, it’s the city’s
history, it’s the country’s history,” she said. “How do you eat an elephant?
One bite at a time. You cannot take the whole thing at one time. You’ve got to
do lots of little bites and we’ve got people in 50 states biting away at the
story.”
For more information on Juneteenth Nevada
events, contact Dee Evans by phone at 888-509-6563, ext. 701, or by email at
[email protected]
Contact Shea Johnson at [email protected] or
702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on
Twitter.
Juneteenth events
June 3 – Flag raising at North Las Vegas City
Hall, 2250 Las Vegas Blvd N, North Las Vegas, 9 a.m.
June 7 – Flag raising at Las Vegas City Hall,
495 S Main St., Las Vegas, 10 a.m.
June 11 – Juneteenth Jazz Legacy and Heritage
Festival at Water Street Plaza, 240 S Water St., Henderson, 5 p.m.
June 12 – Essence to Africa presentation at
Whitney Ranch Recreation Center, 1575 Galleria Dr., Henderson, 2 p.m.
June 13 – Unity caravan beginning at old Moulin
Rouge, 900 W. Bonanza Rd., Las Vegas, 12 p.m.
June 13 – Dashiki Sunday at West Las Vegas Arts
Center, 947 W Lake Mead Blvd., Las Vegas, 12:3o p.m.
June 17 – Flag raising at the Martin Luther
King, Jr. statue, 1344 W Carey Ave., North Las Vegas., 11 a.m.
June 18, 19 – Workshops and photo exhibits at
the West Las Vegas Art Center, 947 W Lake Mead Blvd., Las Vegas., 11:3o a.m.
June 18 – 10th Annual Juneteenth Jazz, Arts and
Spoken Word Celebration at the West Las Vegas Library Theatre, 951 W Lake Mead
Blvd, Las Vegas, 12 p.m.
June 19 – 10th Annual Juneteenth Jazz, Arts and
Spoken Word Celebration at the West Las Vegas Library Theatre, 951 W Lake Mead
Blvd, Las Vegas, 11:30 a.m.
June 19 – 20th Annual Las Vegas Juneteenth
Festival at Kianga Isoke Palacio Park, 951 W Lake Mead Blvd, Las Vegas, 6 p.m.
Contact Dee Evans by
phone at 888-509-6563, ext. 701, or by email at [email protected] for
more information.
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