- This is the fifth year that Juneteenth will be celebrated across the nation as a federal holiday.

It was June 19th, 1865 when the last group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas finally learned that they were free, more than two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American history is commemorating Juneteenth with a variety of activities that celebrate Black history, Black culture and community.

Here to tell us more is Lance Wheeler.

He is the museum's Vice President of Learning and Engagement.

Welcome to American Black Journal.

- Thank you, how you doing?

- Hard to believe this is the fifth anniversary.

It seems like this is a more recent thing.

And I think part of the reason that's true is that when I talk to people about Juneteenth, I still get surprise from some folks that it is a federal holiday.

And then beyond that, there are still people who ask me, well, what is that?

What is Juneteenth?

Well, mostly not people in our community, but people from the outside.

And I think part of the point of this is getting everyone to understand the significance of this and why we pause.

- Yeah.

- Every year on this day to think about it.

- Yeah.

And, and I think for me, that the significance behind Juneteenth isn't just remembering the enslaved people in Galvin, Texas found out about it, it's now freedom.

- [Stephen] Yes.

- What does that mean?

- [Stephen] Right.

- What do we do as Black Americans to now grasp something that's new to us and experiencing that, right?

And so for us, for me, Juneteenth is a moment to reflect of who we are.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Where we come from, but also where are we going.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Right?

- Yeah, that's a great way to, that's a great way to think about it.

So talk about how that reflects in the things that the museum does every year.

- Yeah, so we were intentional.

Well, every year we do that throughout our programs and our exhibitions, right?

But particularly for Juneteenth, coming up through our public programs, we are doing a art healing activity where we are painting individuals or a Juneteenth flag, Right, to pay homage to where we came from.

We are also having a video screening of "The Clotilda," which was the last American slave ship.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Following up with a panel discussion with Jamal Jordan of the city's historian, having conversation with descendants from the Clotilda to really talk about what freedom is.

- Yeah.

- What does that truly mean to be a descendant from a former enslaved person, right?

And then we're gonna really wrap up the evening with a musical performance, right?

Because with celebration as Black people, we sing, we dance.

- Right.

- Right?

- We have a good time.

- Yeah.

- And so that's, we're really running our activities from 10:00 AM to 9:00 PM at night.

It's a all day event.

- Yeah.

- And it's free.

- And it's free, right.

I mean, it has been free each year and that's important to kind of welcome everybody in.

- [Lance] Yes.

- Who's interested.

You're fairly new here and at the museum.

Tell me how important this day and this celebration is at the museum and why the Wright is the right place.

- [Lance] Yeah.

- For us to do this.

- I will say that the museum's been around, we're really celebrating our 60 year anniversary this year.

What does that mean?

Right?

In a Black city, right?

But also important, I wanna point out that before Juneteenth was a national holiday, the museum was always celebrating - [Stephen] Was always acknowledging it, right?

- We always acknowledged it, right?

We as people and as an institution, we didn't need someone to tell us this is a national holiday.

For us, it was always a celebration of freedom, remembrance, and honoring our ancestors.

And today, and so the museum is still gonna continue to do that 60 years later down the road, whether it is a national holiday day, right?

Still, or whether it's not.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- We're gonna still always celebrate and honor and remember who we are.

Also talk about this year and what I guess I would assign additional importance to, for recognizing not just this day, but as you point out, the idea of freedom.

We're having quite an intense, I think, debate about what freedom means and should look like in this country.

And not just for African Americans.

- For all people.

- [Lance] For all people.

You know, I think the word freedom can be very subjective.

It means different things for different people, right?

I think for me, if I had to talk about, for me personally, freedom means a sense of peace, right?

A sense of imagination, right?

And I think the Charles H. Wright African American Museum does that, right?

Dr. Wright had a vision of like, how do we create freedom?

How do we create imagination, but also how do we remember who we are and where we're going.

- Yeah.

- And so for me, that is what freedom is, even in the complexities of this country, I think we have to take moments to remember those moments.

And I think the museum does a, a fantastic job of reminding us of who we are, how we got here and where we're going.

- Yeah yeah.

That sense of peace, I think is really key right now.

Because I think there are so many people who don't feel at peace Because they feel like, you know, the freedom is threatened.

- Yeah.

- [Lance] You don't know where we're going.

- Or in question in a way that it wasn't before.

You know, how do we sort of settle that discussion so that everybody does feel that sense of peace?

- I think for me, if we're thinking about Juneteenth, right?

And we're honoring and remembering former, enslaved people, right?

They went through a process of a system that broke them, right?

That destroyed them, that ripped families away from them.

But those individuals kept moving forward, right?

In the hope of one day freedom, right?

- [Stephen] Right, right.

- And transitioning that to individuals like Dr. King, Dr. Wright, Malcolm X, Dr. Betty Shabazz, right?

Looking and remembering, I do remember where we come from, right?

- Right.

- Remember that they had held on hope, and hope was pouring into me and freedom was poured into me.

And so I think for me, that's the way that we continue to do that, Even in turmoil in this country.

- Yeah.

- Right?

Is remembering the past to say, hey, if we can get through that process, we can get through this again.

- Yeah, I've been saying for a while now that, you know, for African Americans, this is not new.

- Not at all.

- This period is not new.

This is our continued existence.

There are lots of folks joining us now, not to their own choice.

ut in some cases they're learning what that feels like to agree to be in that position.

- It's just new players on the board.

- Yeah, right.

- That's it.

- Right.

Let's talk about the welcome that you guys kind of extend, I think, for this, I mean, it is a celebration of an event in African American history, and it is about African American freedom, but we want people who are not African American to feel like, hey, I could come and be part of this and I could learn something.

- Yeah, we're not exclusive.

We want to educate everybody.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- Right?

Of all ages, backgrounds.

And so we welcome, we want to be in conversation because this is not just Black African, Black American, African American history, this is American history, right?

We have been part of this country for a very long time.

Right?

And we know that in dialogue, we can't continue to tell our own story just by ourselves.

We have to share it with people, because we are a resilient people.

And this is country is also resilient, right?

And so we welcome our, we open our door, excuse me, to everyone.

- Yeah, yeah.

We've got about a minute left, but I want to have you talk just a little about the 60th.

- Yeah.

- Stuff that's going on.

- So we have a lot of things happening this year.

We do have our gala and we would love people to come.

And it's to celebrate 60 years of the museum once again.

And then we have a slate of activities and public programs and exhibitions happening.

We do have currently have an exhibition called Luminosity that's up.

Hmm.

That's featuring Detroit artists from different periods.

And it's gonna be up for an entire year.

So we say, come and visit, come and learn, come and share, come and laugh.

- [Stephen] Yeah.

- And even come dance with us beyond Juneteenth at the museum for this year.

- All right, well congratulations on all the great programming.

- Thank you.

- And thanks for being here with us.

- Thank you.

- There are several other events taking place in metro Detroit that celebrate Juneteenth Independence Day.

Here's a look at some of the activities this month.

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