Local residents, Port Huron Museums to celebrate Black Americans' freedom on Juneteenth

Katelin and Robert Walker, a married Port Huron couple, first learned about Juneteenth last year, only three weeks before the holiday. Despite the time crunch, they decided to celebrate with a party for all their family and friends. 

The party was a success, so they plan to throw another this year in the hopes that even more people will attend. Katelin Walker said they celebrate the holiday like the 4th of July, complete with food, fireworks and a bonfire.

Katelin Walker, who is white, said they want to raise awareness of the holiday because it celebrates Black people's freedom in America. Robert Walker is Black and their four children are biracial.

“I just want our children to know that there is a holiday for them as well," she said. 

Recognized every year on June 19, Juneteenth marks the day when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were notified of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1865.

Katelin Walker said her family first learned about the day commemorating the end of slavery in the United States last May, around the time of George Floyd's murder by a white Minneapolis police officer. She said they learned of the holiday by watching programs on TV. 

“It was like oh wow, this has been happening for so long and it hasn’t even been recognized," she said. 

Port Huron Museums to hold exhibit grand opening 

The Port Huron Museums is holding another opening of its first fixed Black history exhibit on Saturday to mark Juneteenth.

Entitled, “From Whence We Came: Black History in the Blue Water Area,” there was a soft opening in February for the exhibit. Andrew Kercher, the museum’s community engagement manager, said this weekend will be a good opportunity for those who didn’t feel comfortable visiting a public space when COVID-19 had a heavier presence in the community.

“So, this is another opportunity people to come and see that,” he said.

Kercher said he anticipated Black Lives Matter and Kevin Watkins, Port Huron’s NAACP chapter president, to have a presence, adding, “There’s going to be a lot of remarks. I like that we’re able to work with all these other cultural and community organizations.”

Watkins talked about the coalition of local groups like the NAACP, BLM and others like SCORE, or St. Clair Organizing for Racial Equity, and said he thinks it is important to use those relationships to connect commemoration of Juneteenth with Port Huron's local history.

Watkins said he will discuss the larger impact of the now formally recognized holiday. Although white Americans celebrate the country's independence on July 4, 1776, Watkins said, "Our independence, we were enslaved 89 years past that."

There will also be an opening prayer and entertainment, including poetry reading and spiritual dancers, he said. 

The museum’s Carnegie Center, where the exhibit is located, opens at 10 a.m. Saturdays, though Kercher said festivities should kick off at 11 a.m. Food trucks will be on site 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event’s admission is by donation.

Originally, Kercher said they hoped to have reprinted copies available of Marguerite Stanley’s book “From Whence We Came,” which much of the exhibit is based upon.

“Unfortunately, the publishing company has run into some delays on their own COVID-type issues,” Kercher said. “So, we won’t have the books on hand, but we will be doing some presales for the first 100 copies of the book, which will almost sell out. We already have enough interested parties that it’s going to sell out. We’ll have to go back for round two.”

Watkins said From Whence We Came, the exhibit and the book, help tell the local history. "Their stories, what they meant to the building of Port Huron," he said.

Contact Laura Fitzgerald at (810) 941-7072 or at lfitzgeral@gannett.com. Contact Jackie Smith at (810) 989-6270 or jssmith@gannett.com.