Lancaster raises the Juneteenth flag for the first time

• Gabriela Martínez/WITF
  BioRecent Stories

  

  I cover Latino communities in central Pennsylvania with a special focus on Reading and other cities where Spanish-speaking communities are growing rapidly. My stories explore the impact of language barriers, labor issues, the growth of Latino political power through grassroots efforts and many other things.
  
  I’m a native Spanish speaker myself. I grew up in the San Juan area of Puerto Rico. The English I know now, I learned mostly thanks to watching a lot of TV growing up, mostly Nickelodeon shows. I also learned Russian in college, which I perfected during my time teaching English in southern Siberia through the Fulbright Program.
  
  In my free time I like to hike, hang out with my two cats, Yanka and Ruben Blades, and watch every awful horror movie I can find.

 Khan Muhammad Nafee Mostafa Sadh / Creative Commons via Wikimedia

A flag commemorating Juneteenth.

For the first time in Lancaster, the Juneteenth flag will fly over City Hall.

The city will celebrate a flag raising event at 9 a.m. at City Hall, North Duke Street on Friday. The event will be led by city officials, NAACP Lancaster, community and faith leaders.

Although President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, many slaves remained unaware of their freedom for years. Juneteenth commemorates July 19, 1865, the day Union troops marched into Galveston, Texas, and brought word of freedom to the city’s enslaved Black people.

“We celebrate our freedom and rights, not what we inherited, but rather what our forefathers and our foremothers fought and died for,” said Blanding Watson, president of Lancaster’s NAACP branch.

Lancaster County recognized Juneteenth for the first time through a proclamation. One of the county’s commissioners, Craig Lehman, recommended adding Juneteenth to the list of county holidays in 2022. Juneteenth was designated a state holiday in Pennsylvania in 2019.

Rogelio V. Solis / Associated Press

Amya Watson, 11, prints “Black Power” on a poster celebrating Juneteenth during the “Black Joy as Resistance! Juneteenth Celebration” in the historic Farish Street business district in downtown Jackson, Miss., Friday, June 19, 2020. Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to take control of the state and ensure all enslaved people be freed, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

This week, President Joe Biden signed legislation establishing Juneteenth as the 12th federal holiday.

The Juneteenth flag, created in 1997, is red, white and blue with a bursting star that is a nod to the lone star on the Texas flag, but also represents the freedom of all Black Americans.

“We have to do all that we can to not just make this a momentous moment on a flag raising or the celebration and the activities,” Watson said, “but actually doing some intentional work, to make things happen, so that things do get better and relevant to civil rights and equal rights in our country and also in Lancaster County.”

On Saturday, June 19 — the official day of Juneteenth — the NAACP in Lancaster will host a vigil at 10:45 a.m. at the corner of Broad and East King streets. Following the vigil, a caravan will meet at the Broad Street parking lot, where a procession will commence at 1 p.m. There will also be a family event at Lancaster County Park, Pavilion One.

Gabriela Martínez is part of the “Report for America” program — a national service effort that places journalists in newsrooms across the country to report on under-covered topics and communities.

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