'There is so much depth to our culture': Melbourne celebrates Juneteenth
MELBOURNE — Three years ago, Mica Brown and her friends washed almost 100 pounds of donated chicken in her kitchen sink in preparation for the first Juneteenth celebration to be hosted in Melbourne.
It was a small event that Brown organized in hopes of bringing people together and showing others that Black people weren’t the rioters they were portrayed to be on TV, she said.
“We don’t have to be those people you looked at during that timeframe of riots. We’re not that,” said Brown, who's 27. “There is so much depth to our culture, to us as human beings, at the end of the day.”
What is Juneteenth?: What it means, how to celebrate and support Black culture
More Juneteenth events: Here's a guide to some of the holiday's celebrations across Brevard
On Saturday, dozens of people from all races and cultures showed up in Melbourne and other Space Coast cities to mark Juneteenth, which only became a federal holiday last year. One event took place at Melbourne's Riverview Park, where dozens of people showed up in 94-degree heat to eat barbecue, listen to poetry and watch dancers, and hear remarks about Black history in Brevard County. Posterboards with scenes from Black history accompanied several booths selling food and handcrafted Juneteenth memorabilia.
Juneteenth celebrations also took place at Cocoa Riverfront Park in Cocoa and at Cuyler Park in Mims this year.
Juneteenth honors the day news of the Emancipation Proclamation — which President Abraham Lincoln issued on New Year's Day in 1863 — reached Texas on June 19, 1865, two months after the end of the Civil War. President Joe Biden signed a bill into law last year that made June 19 a federal holiday.
Juneteenth has been celebrated within the Black community long before the federal government recognized it as a holiday.
While Brown said she was excited about the event turnout, she said it marks only one small part of the progress that still needs to be made to bridge gaps between Black and white people in the United States.
Khalil Hakim, 57, of Melbourne, echoed Brown's sentiment, adding that education is needed to confront the uglier parts of America's past, including slavery. Recent trends in conservative politics, however, have made that more difficult, as states including Florida have imposed a ban on the teaching of "critical race theory."
Cheryl M. Jarrell, 60, of Melbourne, who helped Brown organize the event, said Black children are confronted with the consequences of America’s slavery past every day, and that it is important that white children learn about this part of American history as well.
“We have to realize that our children see so much now that we have to tell them the truth. And sometimes the truth hurts, but we can tell it to them lovingly,” Jarrell said.
Brown also stressed the need for educating children about painful pages from the past.
“If we don’t learn from our history, we repeat it over and over and over. And at some point, it doesn’t need to be a comma. It needs to be a period,” Brown said.
Part of that is celebrating days such as Juneteenth and integrating more Black history in Melbourne, said Joseph McNeil, 75, of Melbourne, who is president of the Concerned Citizens Committee of South Brevard.
McNeil said that the group is currently trying to raise money to get statues of the three Black freedmen who founded what became Melbourne — Wright Brothers, Peter Wright and Balaam Allen — erected in Melbourne. The group has raised $20,000 thus far, but needs $400,000 to get the statues.
McNeil said having statues of the founders will help raise more awareness about Melbourne's Black founders, and about the city's Black history. That will help create a more equal society, Hakim said, but it will take time.
“It’s going to take generations," he said. "This will be a generational change."
Amira Sweilem is the data reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Sweilem at 386-406-5648 or asweilem@floridatoday.com.
Breaking news reporter Finch walker contributed to this reporter.
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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Juneteenth holiday celebrated at Riverview Park in Melbourne
