At Farmer’s Market, Juneteenth Took Center Stage on Saturday

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, June 23, 2021

On Saturday, June 19, Vashon’s Farmer’s Market became a place of celebration of Juneteenth, the newly declared federal holiday that has long been observed as an important holiday for Black Americans.

Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when enslaved citizens of Texas were finally declared free from bondage, a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

At Vashon’s celebration, lead organizer Christina Arthur unveiled a new mural, painted by islander West McLean, that depicts a group of formerly enslaved people who had taken their destinies into their own hands and escaped into northern Virginia during the Civil War.

Arthur noted in comments during the unveiling that more than a century and a half after the Civil War, the freedoms of Black and brown people are still tenuous and continually threatened.

“Juneteenth is indeed a celebration — it is long overdue in its new federal recognition, and emancipation is worthy of our joy, regardless of our ethnicity,” she said. “But we must continue vigilance and tireless work, shouldering the righteous burden of equality and carrying it forward.”

After the unveiling, Arthur — who moved to the island with her wife a year and a half ago and is the mother of an eight-month-old baby, born during the pandemic — said that she had worked with a committee of islanders to create Vashon’s first annual official celebration of Juneteenth.

“I appreciate that events like this keep moving the needle,” she said.

She credited Vashon Island Growers Association (VIGA) members and other volunteers for their support of the event, singling out Janie Starr and Lisa Hasselman of Forest Garden Farms, as having been especially helpful and enthusiastic in the planning process.

The celebration included a giveaway of packets of organic collard green seeds, from Uprising Seeds in Bellingham, that came complete with a recipe from Vashon’s Black-owned restaurant, Gravy. Growing kits and Juneteenth reading lists were also distributed to children