Last summer, I witnessed the West Bank community gather in good spirits to celebrate a national holiday I had ever read about in textbooks.

One of the highlights of being a reporter is seeing firsthand how passion drives community outreach. Translating those passions into words on a page requires an endless commitment to listening and learning.

That’s how I became familiar with Juneteenth, celebrated annually on June 19 to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.

News travels fast in today’s interconnected world, a far cry from the Civil War era.

The Emancipation Proclamation, signed by Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, did not mark immediate freedom for enslaved populations.

It wasn’t until June 19, 1865 that Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform the community all slaves had been freed. Galveston was believed to be the final community to learn of and comply with emancipation.

This week, the dedicated team members of Whitney Plantation in Wallace coordinated a three-person panel to discuss the successes and challenges that accompanied emancipation.

The panel discussion took place Friday night at Loyola University in New Orleans.

Dr. Tera Hunter, visiting from Princeton University, shared how emancipation impacted the institution of marriage. For years, marriage had been controlled, if not banned altogether, among enslaved populations.

Guest speakers Dr. Mary Niall Mitchell and Edward Baptist are part of the Freedom on the Move project, which documents the contributions of self-emancipation efforts.

According to Dr. Joy Banner, marketing director at Whitney Plantation, self-emancipated individuals added fuel to the fire that led to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.

Banner has organized Juneteenth events through Whitney Plantation since 2017 to remind others that the Fourth of July wasn’t Independence Day for everyone.

We had the Fourth of July to celebrate independence even when people were enslaved,” Banner said. “Frederick Douglas said, “What, to the slave, is the Fourth of July?” I think it’s important to understand this is Independence Day for a huge segment of the African American population. It was the day that we were given the right to be recognized as a full American.”

Banner said Juneteenth and Independence Day are not in competition with each other, but rather combine to tell a larger story of American history.

“The Fourth of July is one of my favorite holidays,” Banner said. “For us, Juneteenth is full circle to celebrate independence of the country and to celebrate the freedom of African Americans. Having those two holidays is a way to show, as a country, we came full circle. It wasn’t the end, but it was an important marker of us recognizing full citizenship for all Americans.”

I’m happy to have learned about Juneteenth and what it represents to the people of our community. Diversity is part of St. John the Baptist Parish’s identity, and we should always remember the adversity, and the progress, that shaped our modern world.