On June 17 this year, President Joe Biden signed into law a bill recognizing Juneteenth as the 11th federal holiday. The next evening, the University of Miami Black Alumni Society (UMBAS) introduced its new executive board for 2021-2023 as it hosted its third annual—and second virtual—Juneteenth event. Several dozen ’Canes from around the country gathered online to commemorate the day, also known as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day.
June 19—Juneteenth—has long been widely observed by Black Americans and many others as the day on which, in 1865, enslaved Black Texans learned of their freedom as President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 was finally enforced in Texas after the end of the Civil War.
As Patricia Dunac Morgan, B.S. ’06, president of UMBAS, said in her welcoming remarks, Juneteenth not only commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in the South, but is also a day “to celebrate our collective strength, our resilience, and our truth. As an educator, I know our story can be hard, it can be sad, it can be difficult, especially, to package in a way that is developmentally appropriate for our kids. [Yet] it is only through recognition of our truth that we’re able to make meaningful progress.”
Morgan and immediate past president, Wendy Ann Dixon Dubois, A.B. ’06 highlighted UMBAS’s accomplishments over the past fiscal year, which included raising more than $46,000 for diversity and inclusion scholarships and programming at the U, hosting a hugely successful three-day Black Excellence event in February, receiving formal University recognition as an official affinity group, and winning two Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) awards for the 2020 Juneteenth virtual celebration.
After a performance by the University’s Hammond-Butler Gospel Choir of Lift Every Voice and Sign, often referred to as the Black National Anthem, UMBAS president-elect Astin Hayes, B.Sc. ’06, led a libation ceremony. This tradition, which originated in West Africa, centers on libations—water or spirits—that are poured out to remember and honor those whose past struggles paved the way for today’s opportunities and successes and look toward future dreams and aspirations.
The main Juneteenth program was hosted by Tre’Vaughn Howard, B.Sc. ’21 and was designed to “engage with your heart and intellect,” as Howard said. “And of course, what’s celebration among people of color without the sharing of food?” The latter was a nod to the interactive culinary demonstrations by alumni Nia Grace, ’04 and Andre Palmer, B.B.A. ’04, which highlighted culturally Black food and gave a platform to Black-owned alumni businesses.
Grace is owner of Darryl’s Corner Kitchen & Bar in Boston. For Juneteenth she crafted the UN’fashioned, a signature cocktail whose base spirit is Uncle Nearest premium Tennessee whiskey. The name pays homage to Nathan “Uncle Nearest” Green, who, as a slave in the 1850s, perfected the Lincoln County filtering process that distinguishes Tennessee whiskeys, and whose legacy had until a few years ago been almost forgotten. Palmer is the owner of the Palmer Collection, a line of island-inspired foods and sauces, and is a culinary instructor for Stranahan High School in Broward County. His demonstration was of a recipe for jerk fried chicken wings, finished with his signature Guava Brava sauce.
Grace drew parallels between Uncle Nearest’s life’s work and that of today’s Black entrepreneurs like her and Palmer. “Even after he was freed he continued to work for the Daniel family [makers of Jack Daniel’s] and he did so with pride. We are always going to be proud of our work product because we go hard…I chose this beverage [because it signifies] freedom to claim and promote my history, freedom to operate and do business unapologetically, freedom to reject charity and promote equality, and freedom to own and be proud of our ideas,” she said.
In addition to the interactive demonstrations, rising junior KiAnna Dorsey, executive producer of UMTV’s The Culture, moderated a wide-ranging conversation with Marvin Dunn, professor emeritus and retired chairman of the Department of Psychology at Florida International University and author of Black Miami in the Twentieth Century and The Miami Riot of 1980: Crossing the Bounds, among other works.
Dunn recalled his eyewitness experience of and reactions to the 1980 riot, which erupted after the acquittal of five white police officers on murder charges in the beating death of Arthur McDuffie, and he reminded listeners that “what puts Black people in the streets is injustice, the miscarriage of justice, particularly at the hands of the police, a problem we have not yet solved in Miami-Dade County or in this country. The same things that led to McDuffie being beaten to death that night in December 1979 are [still] happening.”
He also talked about what he considers the meaning of Juneteenth. “It has emotional meaning but not financial, political or any other meaning beyond what makes a difference in people’s daily lives. It’s what I would call an affective holiday, a feeling holiday in the sense that the people who experienced this horror during the period of slavery and those of us who’ve come after them carrying the memories and the hurt forward have reason to be appreciative that [slavery] stopped…It doesn’t mean that the winning of the war was not significant, because it was, and it also means that it should be celebrated for what it accomplished. But let us not overstate what was accomplished.”
There was much more to the UMBAS Juneteenth event. Click here to view the full recording.
