East St. Louis nonprofit to host Black History Month event about Juneteenth

The significance of Juneteenth and the push to make it a national holiday will be the center of a local Black History Month celebration on Sunday.

The virtual event, titled “We Still Here and Lovin’ Our Direction,” will be hosted by Community Development Sustainable Solutions, a nonprofit in East St. Louis.

It will feature local leaders explaining their support of Juneteenth and their efforts toward eliminating systemic racism in their communities. People can attend the virtual event at noon via Zoom or the nonprofit’s Facebook page.

“We’re very excited about Juneteenth, so we just wanted to take a walk through that pivotal aspect from Juneteenth to Jim Crow to the bus boycott to police brutality to George Floyd,” Stephanie Taylor, president of the nonprofit, said. “ Not focusing on the bad but the agitation to change and standing on what President Lincoln did. We have to finish addressing those outdated laws and those systems that continue to bring about that divide.”

“We still face injustice, and it all piled on these last few deaths, namely George Floyd, that pushed us all to say we need to stand again and ask that our leaders take a look at these systems, so what we’re doing is having a community call to action.”

The nonprofit, which seeks to empower the East St. Louis community by creating solutions to some of the issues residents face, has advocated for Juneteenth being locally and nationally recognized for nearly nine years.

The holiday commemorates the end of slavery in the United States and is named after June 19, 1865, the day when slaves in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom. Every year, Community Development Sustainable Solutions hosts a Juneteenth celebration in East St. Louis.

Taylor, who’s a part of the Illinois Juneteenth Committee, said bringing more attention to the holiday aligns with the importance of President Lincoln issuing the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 during the Civil War. While the proclamation called for the end of slavery in Confederate states but not across the United States, Taylor said it transformed the national conversation about slavery at that time.

“It’s very important to us, for me, because Illinois was a leader because of President Lincoln. To me, it matters much because he was a lawyer, and those words he put down, no one has been able to alter yet,” Taylor said. “He said it was up to us to continue that conversation and change those laws, and now is the time.”

Although not a federal holiday, Juneteenth is recognized either as a state or ceremonial holiday by 47 states, including Illinois, and Washington, D.C.

Juneteenth isn’t a state holiday in Illinois, but Gov. J.B. Pritzker has announced plans to make it one. Last year, St. Clair County Board members approved a resolution making Juneteenth a paid holiday for all county employees.

Taylor said she was surprised, yet elated, that her organization’s efforts were influential in the holiday being recognized in St. Clair County. But she said there’s still more work to do.

“What touched my heart the most was last year, I sat at my home as dusk hit, and I started hearing what I perceived to be gunshots, so I turned and looked at my husband and said, ‘I cannot believe that these people are starting to shoot already.’ He grabbed me and he said, ‘No, baby, those are fireworks for Juneteenth,’ so I just started crying then and really listened,” Taylor said. “I could not believe the amount of posts and the fact that people had actually gotten fireworks on that behalf.”

“As part of the Juneteenth committee, I work closely with their education committee. We want to see Juneteenth curriculum in every classroom. We want to see the schools help us to uplift proper and true history,” she said. “Every Black History Month, we don’t always want to see images of bondage. We want to see images of freedom and something indicative of the flag of Juneteenth that says we are a new star, new people, bursting over the horizon, forever changed culturally here in the United States.”

Sunday’s event will feature city officials such as Cahokia Mayor Curtis McCall Jr., Brooklyn Mayor Vera Glasper-Banks, state Sen. Christopher Belt (D-Centreville) and state Rep. LaToya Greenwood (D-East St. Louis) speaking on the importance of Juneteenth becoming a national holiday.

Although Belt said he currently isn’t creating any legislation toward the cause in the state, he said it’s something he is looking forward to supporting in the future. He expects it to be part of the 102nd General Assembly, which started in January.

“Make no mistakes about it, I understand it’s got a Black face to it, it’s tied to Black people’s understanding that the war is over and the celebration from that point on, but on a bigger level, I mean, we celebrate Independence Day and that’s America’s freedom from the tyranny of the British empire,” Belt said. “We need to celebrate the abolishment of slavery, and that needs to be celebrated all across the state, not as a Black person’s holiday, but as a United States’ holiday.”

Belt said he hopes people attending Sunday’s event understand the historical significance of Juneteenth and its impact.

“We’ve had our struggles with Jim Crow, Black Codes and everything else, even with the Union winning the war, but I just think had the Union not prevailed, we would be farther stunted from where we are now, and so I hope that they walk away and understand that this thing is huge, that Black people are American and they’ve had a great impact on American society in every aspect of American society, but that it’s not just a Black person’s holiday,” Belt said. “It should be an American holiday, and it should be celebrated because that was, in theory, the abolishment of slavery and that in it of itself is a reason for us to celebrate.”

Click here to watch Sunday’s event. via Zoom It’ll also be streamed on Community Development Sustainable Solutions’ Facebook page.

This story was originally published February 12, 2021 at 5:00 AM.

DeAsia Paige

Belleville News-Democrat

DeAsia Paige joined the Belleville News-Democrat as a Report for America corps member in 2020. She’s a community reporter covering East St. Louis and surrounding areas. DeAsia previously interned with VICE and The Detroit Free Press. She graduated from The University of Kansas in 2020.