Speakers and musicians weaved together the journeys of people across the country and world to celebrate Juneteenth at Vashon Center for the Arts last Thursday.

Indigenous people, African Americans, the victims of World War II Japanese incarceration, Palestinians, and immigrants targeted today by U.S. federal agents — their stories, and their reconciliation, are connected, speakers said.

Speaker Elijah Berry, who is the new owner of Vashon Baking Company, shared his compelling family story — his childhood Missouri home was built in 1872 by his great-grandfather, who was freed from slavery by the Union Army and who married the granddaughter of American folk figure Daniel Boone.

A Black household in a predominantly white part of the state, they were some of the few Black families who did not clear out of the area after a large and public lynching in 1906 in Springfield.

“We stayed not because it was the easiest thing to do, but because it really mattered to us,” Berry said. “… We made room for ourselves in that town, and others have as well.”

Berry said his father, a flower-child, African American Russian Orthodox priest and historian, opened a small museum in their hometown that displayed artifacts showing both the beautiful and the difficult parts of their family history — both letters and photographs and neck irons. The museum’s opening caused some hubbub in town, Berry said, from folks who asked: Why dig up painful memories of the past?

Because, Berry’s father explained: “This is what happened. And we can say these things without pain and anger. This is the truth, and if we forget, then we’re missing a part of ourselves.”

His sister, Berry said, continues that work as the digital curator at the National African American Museum in Washington, D.C.

Berry is part of the first generation of his family to leave the house built in 1872. On Vashon, he said, he’s found a community where his story can continue to develop. As his father explained to him, Berry said: “Our task is not simply to carry our [inherited] history forward, but to enrich it, adapt it and pass it on stronger to those who come after us.”

“This holiday reminds us that freedom without acknowledgement is incomplete, and that healing is not a passive process,” Berry said. “It requires work. It means facing uncomfortable truths.”

“We have to connect the dots between colonialism and oppression … how they relate to us here in this country, on this island … to those that are in Sudan, or the Congo, or Myanmar or in Palestine,” said musician Ben Hunter, who delivered spellbinding blues performances on guitar and fiddle at the Juneteenth celebration. (Alex Bruell photo)

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the end of slavery in the U.S. Celebrated annually on June 19, it marks the day in 1865 when Union troops arrived in Galveston and informed enslaved people in Texas that they were free, under the enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation — which was issued more than two years earlier.

The holiday was first commemorated in Galveston as early as 1866 and spread across Texas and the entire country until, in 2021, following a year of nationwide protests against police brutality, Congress and President Joe Biden passed legislation making Juneteenth a national holiday.

Speaker Nan Wilson reads General Order #3 at the ceremony. (Alex Bruell photo)

Speaker Nan Wilson read the famous General Order #3, lending her expressive delivery to a historical document that reveals the prejudices and anxieties that white people still felt toward those Black people who were now no longer subject to be legally treated as another human’s property.

“The people of Texas are informed that in accordance with a proclamation from the executive of the United States, all slaves are free,” the document begins. But later, it warns: “The freed men are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages.”

With a witty expression, Wilson continued reading: “They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts, and they will not be supported in idleness, either there or elsewhere.”

Yasmin Ravard-Andresen led the crowd in a performance of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn often referred to as “the Black National Anthem.” (Alex Bruell photo)

Yasmin Ravard-Andresen again this year sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a hymn often referred to as “the Black National Anthem.” The hymn is long and demanding, and that’s for a reason, Ravard-Andresen said: It reflects the resilience of the Black community. At Ravard-Andresen’s suggestion, members of the audience sung with her, many taking out their cell phones to look up the lyrics.

The celebration that Thursday was symbolized by the Sankofa, an emblem from the Akan culture of Ghana depicting a bird moving forward with its head turning back. It represents the need to retrieve forgotten, lost or erased wisdom from the past to make the right decisions in the present and future.

“Through a spirit of joyful remembrance, we aim to model reconciliation, [and] demonstrate how honoring our collective past, especially the African American journey from slavery to freedom, can guide us toward greater understanding, empathy and unity today,” said speaker Betty Peralta, a counselor and coach for parents and children.

Betty Peralta and Rev. Amelia Bolyard, relational health consultants, spoke to the ways anyone can practice reconciliation during the Juneteenth ceremony. (Alex Bruell photo)

In reckoning with the history and generational trauma of slavery, Amelia Bolyard, a fellow counselor and coach, laid out a desire “not to dwell in pain, but to move toward collective healing.”

She described a path to doing so: Acknowledging the wrongs done. Celebrating the resilience, forgiveness and strength of those dealt injustice. Bridging differences with and nurturing our neighbors. And leading by example to inspire others.

Some of those local exemplars, highlighted in posters on the wall at VCA, included Benjamin Louis Glover, a Buffalo Soldier whose burial on Vashon was re-discovered last year; William Owen Bush, the first Black person to serve in the Washington State Legislature; and Netty Craid Asberry, a Black woman, music teacher, social worker and founder of the Tacoma NAACP who protested (and successfully changed) racist practices in early 20th century Washington.

Dr. Jade Agua, executive director of the Friends of Mukai, compared the story of the Mukai family — one of many on Vashon forced from their homes in May, 1942 — to modern-day injustices.

“From Japanese incarceration, to ICE deportations, from slavery to racism, the past is present,” she said.

Musician Gordy Ryan led drummers, singers and more musicians in performing African songs of celebration, love and inner strength. (Alex Bruell photo)

Vashon resident Shelley Means (Ojibwe/Lakota), a board member of the Seattle Indian Health Board, shared an anecdote from Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass,” a 2013 book about Indigenous knowledge. In that book, Kimmerer compares English — a noun-heavy language — to Indigenous languages, which are noun-light and focus more on “adjectives, descriptions, verbs, action, ways of being,” Means said.

Means invited the audience to think of concepts like the land, reconciliation and remembering as “ways of being,” rather than, simply, things that can be named and labeled.

“Reparations as a noun becomes about money. It becomes political. It becomes a ‘yes or no,’ binary thing,” Means said. “When reparations is a way of being, it’s a commitment to a process to understand. What repair is needed? Who experienced the things that need to be repaired? Where is the healing needed? It’s a process, not a thing.”