Juneteenth Celebration connects community through music, poetry and history

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — There are many ways to unite a community, and the recent Juneteenth Celebration, put on by Our Lodge Foundation, Frederick Allen Elks Lodge #609, and MLK Saratoga, proved one of the most effective ways to do so was through music, poetry and shared history.

Held at the Saratoga Regional YMCA, the event was free and family-friendly. Held in remembrance and celebration of Juneteenth, the public was welcome to enjoy a mix of live performances, ranging from spoken word poetry to dancing and singing, as well as to connect with the more than 30 community partners and organizations that came out to support the Celebration.

Lezlie Dana, President of the Our Lodge Foundation, shared that she was excited to put together a program that amplified and highlighted African American culture while also finding ways to weave everyone in upstate New York together in different ways.

“That’s the power behind it,” Dana explained. “I feel like this is how we turn the conversation. This is how we change what we’re talking about, how we’re talking about it, how we see and connect with each other. That, to me, feels really productive.”

This is the third year this event has been put on, with this year’s theme being “The Responsibility of Freedom.”

The planning committee was very intentional about putting together programming that would highlight the theme, be that through songs performed by Community Voices of Praise Choir and Dan Berggren, spoken work by a number of individuals including D.Colin and Saratoga Springs Poet Laureate Joseph Bruchac and an original play written and directed by one of the organizers of the event, Donald Hyman, called “Emancipation Park.”

Hyman shared that his original work focuses on the “culmination of freedom,” which came in 1865 when enslaved African Americans found out about the Emancipation Proclamation despite it being written two years prior. His play touches on how these men rejoiced when learning of their freedom and since they were not allowed to celebrate, got together, got the money and bought the land which they named “Emancipation Park” which to this day is still used to celebrate freedom and the end of slavery.

“We focus on this in our skit because most don’t realize these gentlemen who started Emancipation Park were ex-slaves, had been transported almost 1500 miles from the East Coast to Texas and were held in bondage extra years when they should have been free,” Hyman explained. “As soon as they got their freedom, and in connection with our theme ‘the Responsibility of Freedom,’ they built up their community, not just the land but churches, schools and cemeteries, they started libraries, they started mutual aid societies and a lot of the institutions that they built in that community are still around today.”

The Juneteenth Celebration also included speeches from local officials such as NYS representative Carrier Woerner and Congressman Paul Tonko, as well as a speech by Saratoga Springs High School Valedictorian and the Frederick Allen Elks Lodge scholarship recipient Aditi Singh.

Kate Graney with MLK Saratoga pointed out the great job the Our Lodge Foundation and the planning committee did to pull in so many collaborators. Be it people those who typically partook in events of this nature or those who haven’t before, she believed this intentionality was a real benefit in making the event feel very special.

“Not just traditional collaborators, like MLK Saratoga, were pulled in but there really was a focus on all of the Capitol District,” Graney said. “Not just social and political organizations but arts organizations, educational organizations, health organizations, environmental organizations – which created a really wonderful, holistic idea of what this holiday means. It’s about all of us remembering our history, honoring our history and committing to the vision of a really strong, just and flourishing community.”

What was truly special about this celebration was watching the community come together to engage and be immersed in the performances. While they were  simultaneously appreciating the singing/dancing/poetry/etc. they were also actively engaging with the history of it all – which was a large goal of the event overall according to Dana.

“We don’t really know our own history till we know all the history – more full-color history, and also a sense that this freedom and democracy are things that we need to cherish, value and find a way to sustain, nurture, and protect,” Dana said. “It’s each of us, we are the ones we have been waiting for. This is our tribe.”