{"id":37230,"date":"2023-06-20T13:40:38","date_gmt":"2023-06-20T17:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/?p=37230"},"modified":"2023-06-20T13:40:41","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T17:40:41","slug":"sinclair-celebrates-juneteenth-with-poetry-and-food","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/tartan-news\/2023\/06\/20\/sinclair-celebrates-juneteenth-with-poetry-and-food\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinclair Celebrates Juneteenth with Poetry and Food"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A large and diverse crowd gathered at the Sinclair Convention Center to celebrate Juneteenth. In an event full of poetry, positivity, and soul food, audiences left the event with a thorough understanding of America\u2019s newest holiday.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opening the event, Sinclair President Steven Johnson welcomed the college\u2019s guests with a look back on the true meaning of Juneteenth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cJuneteenth is the celebration and remembrance of the fact that it wasn\u2019t until two and a half years after the emancipation proclamation was signed and went into effect legally that the slaves in Galveston, Texas were informed that they were free,\u201d Johnson said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd for them and that huge segment of our American population, Juneteenth is an independence day and one that was a long time coming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sinclair Theatre alum Shaun Diggs followed with a presentation on the holiday\u2019s timeline of events. Explained in front of a crowd of children and educators from the college\u2019s early learning center, Diggs detailed how Juneteenth was commemorated over the years with music, food, and historic reenactments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn June 19 1865, General Gordon Granger entered the city of Galvestan with a mix force of thousands of soldiers, white and black,\u201d Diggs said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0\u201cA year later, Juneteenth was celebrated for the first time,\u201d said Diggs.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>
\n

Diggs and other performers shared poems by major writers in line with the event\u2019s theme Freedom Rings and Change Sings<\/em>. Work by celebrated wordsmiths Amanda Gorman, Sharday Moser, and Useni Eugene Perkins were recited to convey the message of empowerment at the heart of Juneteenth.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the importance of the day itself, Professor Michael Carter, Senior Advisor to the President and head of the college\u2019s Diversity Office, said, \u201cSinclair Community College was the first community college to honor Juneteenth in the country. We\u2019ve been doing this before it was a national holiday. I think any day like this, it is really important for us not to let this be just another gesture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading a passage from the landmark title Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, Carter explained how justice and Juneteenth were inextricably linked. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIntuitively we all know what we need to do but it takes courage to do that. I encourage all of you to have the courage to bang the drums of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juneteenth became the nation\u2019s latest holiday after it was signed into law by President Joe Biden on June 17 2021. It is the newest addition to the federal holiday calendar since the introduction of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ismael David Mujahid<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Associate Editor\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A large and diverse crowd gathered at the Sinclair Convention Center to celebrate Juneteenth. In an event full of poetry, positivity, and soul food, audiences left the event with a thorough understanding of America\u2019s newest holiday.\u00a0 Opening the event, Sinclair President Steven Johnson welcomed the college\u2019s guests with a look back on the true meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10416,"featured_media":37231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3613,5528,3361,5386,2110,3],"tags":[5752,5757,2141,14,5756],"class_list":["post-37230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-events","category-history","category-holidays","category-local","category-tartan-news","tag-juneteenth-celebrations-dayton","tag-juneteenth-national-holiday","tag-online-exclusive","tag-sinclair","tag-sinclair-celebrates-juneteenth"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/20230616_190723_124452-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-9Gu","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10416"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37230"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37240,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37230\/revisions\/37240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}