Fairbanks groups have been celebrating Juneteenth for several years with a picnic and sometimes a parade in local parks. But the coronavirus pandemic changed the planning this year for the Greater Fairbanks Branch of the NAACP.
Instead of a day-long outdoor event, the chapter took the celebration online – with two public presentations over the weekend. 112 people logged in to the Friday evening teleconference.
Fleeks: “So lets talk a little bit about the history of Juneteenth…”
Most people on the call were already versed in the origins of the holiday and were hungry to participate or show support to Interior Alaska’s Black and Indigenous communities.
Local historian Diane Fleeks explained that President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 liberated about 3.5 million people in slave states. But it took years for many of those people to find out, as slaveowners did not let their slaves go.
“It took a long, long time for the information to get to us, and the last place to find out was Texas. It took until June 19, 1865.”
A day of celebration called Emancipation Day or Freedom Day has been celebrated in many places ever since, but the Texas-based holiday, recalling the slow spread of news across that area during the third week of June 1865, has recently become dominant.
NAACP officers facilitated music and poetry performances during the call. But with the festivities was a call to action. NAACP Political action chair Robert Kinnard led a workshop on the importance of voting. He mentioned three upcoming duties to vote: the August primary, that leads to the November general election, but he emphasized the October municipal election for city, borough and school district governance.
“The municipal election is local level direct impact. The local elections have the lowest turnout but the most impact for us because it directly affects us on a daily basis.
A two-hour event Saturday morning had workshops on youth involvement and the national NAACP organization’s “We are Done Dying” campaign to focus on people of color dying in disproportionate numbers.
55 people attended the town-hall style discussion with law enforcement officers from the Alaska Department of Corrections and the Alaska State Troopers. Officers from the local NAACP branch and Native Movement are meeting with Fairbanks Police Department officials next week.