Long Islanders mark Juneteenth with dance, poetry and awareness of a changing political climate

Long Islanders celebrated Juneteenth on Thursday, commemorating the end of slavery in the United States, in festivities that included dance, poetry and reminders of the importance of living in freedom.

At Hempstead Village’s celebration, keynote speaker Jonathan D. Lightfoot, Hofstra University professor of Teaching, Learning and Technology, said this year’s holiday should be understood in the context of what he said were the Trump administration's anti-diversity policies and efforts to suppress critical race theory in schools. "My hope is that we the people resist the government takeover of our imperfect democracy," he told the large crowd.

Baldwin resident Cherrell Carter, who attended the celebration at Kennedy Memorial Park in Hempstead, said she was heartened to see that so many had turned out for the celebration. "Our ancestors pushed hard for us to live in freedom," she said. "Sometimes we forget how far we’ve come, but it wasn’t that long ago. That’s why it’s important to keep celebrating and educating people," said Carter.

The evening included raffles, a bounce house, local vendors, hamburgers, hot dogs, cotton candy, popcorn and several live performances.

Angela Stanley, Hempstead’s director of human relations and community events, said this year’s celebration aimed to highlight culture and education while making sure local youth were engaged and understood the meaning behind Juneteenth.

"It’s important for our Hempstead youth to be part of the culture here, and we thought it was really cool to incorporate them in today’s event," said Stanley, pointing to the Hempstead Tigers cheerleaders and a youth dance troupe that performed.

At the Joseph Lloyd Manor in Lloyd Harbor, a former plantation, visitors honored Jupiter Hammon, an enslaved man who lived and worked there in the 18th century and was one of the first published African American writers. "Imagine having somebody who not only was that literate but was creatively literate in poetry" at a time when it was illegal in many places to educate Black people, said Beryl Williams, president and founder of the Caribbean American Poetry Association, which organized the event along with Preservation Long Island.

Professional poets along with the teen poet laureates of Suffolk and Nassau counties performed their work. "I have experienced just so much growth, so many people just accepting Juneteenth just because they understood all the education that's going on with it, all different cultures and races, not just Black people or African Americans," said Sharod White, president and founder of Poem Stars, a Long Island poetry collective, who was one of the performers.

Black Americans have marked the occasion since the 19th century and President Joe Biden made June 19 a federal holiday in 2021. New York State and most Long Island municipalities also recognize the day as an official holiday — except for Nassau County, where County Executive Bruce Blakeman has said designation of the day as a holiday should be part of collective bargaining with county workers.

This year’s Juneteenth comes after the Trump administration worked to remove content about Black American history from federal websites and ban diversity, equity and inclusion programs the president has called wasteful and discriminatory. Corporate sponsors, too, have pulled funding for some Juneteenth events on Long Island and across the country.

Veronica A. Lippencott, director of the Africana Studies Program at Hofstra University, said the holiday had been "caught up in culture wars," not for the first time. The holiday was born at a time of "white supremacist violence, Black codes that prohibited them from voting and compelled them to work for little or no wages," she said.

Observance of the holiday spread during the Great Migration, the exodus of Blacks from the South to the North and West that took place from the 1910s to 1970, she said. "Historically, Juneteenth celebrations were a form of resistance to the systems and institutions that have oppressed us."

With AP