Dayhoff: Juneteenth celebration scheduled at Carroll Community College

This year two Juneteenth celebrations have been scheduled in Carroll County. The town of Sykesville planned an afternoon of events on June 15.

Another organization, SpeakOnIt ActOnIt, has scheduled a celebration at Carroll Community College on June 22 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. This will be the third annual celebration hosted by SpeakOnIt.

Diane Hurd, who has been the driving force behind the celebration, said in an email interview that the sponsors include Carroll Community College, McDaniel College and Point Breeze Federal Credit Union. There will be “thirty vendors selling everything from books, clothes, jewelry, and providing information about local organizations and services.

“Food trucks will be on hand. … Children’s activities include face painting, arts and crafts, games and toy giveaways. For the adults, please stop by Blackstone Brothers and Castlebridge Wine booths.” ( Adult beverages should be enjoyed at home. Carroll Community College is an alcohol-free campus.)

“Black Betty’s Cuisine will be present with their food demonstration and samples,” said Hurd. “Through these foods you will experience African American history and culture. And the best part, if you like it, you can buy it.”

Hurd said there will be “African Storytelling by ‘DiscoverMe.’ This year’s focused conversation will begin at 1:00 in the K Building. The topic, ‘Is Racism Dead and We Didn’t Get the Memo?’ The lively conversation encourages audience engagement and feedback.”

For those not familiar with Juneteenth, the event has been celebrated annually since 1866. I have written about Juneteenth before and much of this discussion has appeared in print.

Juneteenth is a blend of the words, June and Nineteenth. It has also been called Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Cel-Liberation Day, the Second Independence Day, or Emancipation Day.

Juneteenth celebrates June 19, 1865, the day freedom was granted to more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas. On June 18, 1865, Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston with 2,000 federal troops. This was two months after the Civil War had ended with the surrender of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to Union Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House.

This was more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued by President Abraham Lincoln on Sept. 22, 1862. The proclamation carried an effective date of Jan. 1, 1863. However, the proclamation had little real impact in the Confederate states during the balance of the war.

It is well accepted by historians that on June 19, 1865, Granger stood upon the balcony of the Ashton Villa in Galveston and read the contents of “General Order No. 3,” which put into effect the Emancipation Proclamation throughout Texas.

Meanwhile, Maryland had emancipated its enslaved population the year before, on Oct. 13, 1864, upon the ratification of the Maryland Constitution of 1864. In 1840 the population of Carroll County was 17,421. In 1837 there were 1,044 enslaved people living in the county. According to Nancy Warner’s “Carroll County Maryland – A History 1837-1976,” there was even a value of $220,400 placed on the aggregate number of enslaved people in Carroll County.

The German settlers of northern Carroll County owned very few enslaved people. Joseph D. Brooks, the mayor of Westminster from 1892 to 1895, remarked in his lecture “delivered at the Carroll County Society of Baltimore on the county birthday, January 19, 1923,” that the Germans “had no use for negro slaves nor the Federalist followers of Alexander Hamilton, the bitter rival of Thomas Jefferson. Almost two-thirds of the slaves lived in the southern half of the county. They worked primarily on tobacco plantations.”

However, Mayor Brooks reported that “The English … owned large tracts of land and numerous slaves, but when the Civil War began they readily gave up their slaves and joined hands with Abraham Lincoln to save the Union,” Warner wrote.

In one of the many ironies of the Civil War in Carroll County, residents of the northern part of the county who did not generally own enslaved people, supported the southern states during the war. Southern Carroll County residents, who owned two-thirds of enslaved people in the county, supported the northern states.

Furthermore, Warner wrote that, “Those in the western part of the county, led by the Quakers of Union Bridge … tended to oppose slavery.” One of perhaps the first anti-slavery organizations in the nation was formed in Union Bridge, at the time in Frederick County. “A meeting (was) held in (the) Pipe Creek Meeting House on 22 November 1826 to form the Anti-Slavery Society,” says Warner. It was signed by one of my ancestors – a “Wright.”

On June 1, 2014, Maryland, the home of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, became the 43rd state to officially recognize Juneteenth. In 1980, Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth.

On June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation proclaiming June 19 as the “Juneteenth National Independence Day.” The law immediately went into effect. The first national holiday was observed the following day, June 18, 2021. (June 19, 2021, fell on a Saturday.) According to multiple media sources, the federal government now recognizes 12 holidays, including Juneteenth.

Happy Juneteenth.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. His Time Flies column appears every Sunday. Email him at kevindayhoff@gmail.com.