Dancing, eating, vaxxing: Crowd gathers for Juneteenth in Norfolk

Norfolk — Wearing Juneteenth T-shirts designed by their daughter, Sherry and Tony Brooks were on a holiday tour of their own making.

With their granddaughter, Nache Brooks, and 2-month-old great-grandson, Mazi Walden, they started their trek at the festival on Norfolk’s downtown waterfront.

Next, they planned to visit the West Point Cemetery, a burial place for Black Civil War Union veterans. Then, they’d make their way to another Juneteenth festival in Virginia Beach.

“It’s about really being aware, as a people, to know our history and to celebrate it,” Sherry Brooks said. “It’s a learning process.”

Juneteenth, a word that combines June and 19th, is the celebration of freed slaves in Galveston, Texas. Although the Emancipation Proclamation came in 1863, it wasn’t enforced in many places until after the Civil War in 1865.

Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865, with news that the war was over and that enslaved people were free. That was more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

Black people have celebrated Juneteenth for years, with it gradually spreading throughout the United States as Texans moved and took the tradition with them. On Thursday, President Joe Biden signed a bill passed by Congress that marked June 19 as a federal holiday.

In Norfolk, crowds gathered Saturday in Town Point Park to honor the day. There were free lunches and entertainment, with children and seniors alike getting up to do “the wobble” on the lawn. Vendors lined a path to provide information on various health programs and preventive measures.

Pieria White and Ahlek Mitchell took advantage of the COVID-19 vaccination tent, staffed with Eastern Virginia Medical School students. Getting Pfizer shots wasn’t a planned part of their “date night,” but the couple was content listening to music while observing their 15-minute waiting period.

White, who is 29, said Juneteenth is new to her. She didn’t know anything about it until she saw a flyer last year at Amazon, where she worked.

That’s the reality for a lot of folks, said Carynn Porter, who was with her family at the festival. She first learned about the holiday from her Texan piano teacher when she was 10. But many people are just finding out about it, she said.

“It’s not taught, and a lot of kids don’t know about it,” Porter said. “The Fourth of July, that’s supposed to be Independence Day, but if you look at our history, we weren’t all free. This kind of recognizes our independence.”

With a reckoning over race happening across the nation, Porter said it’s a good time to find ways to celebrate being Black.

Going to the event was also about celebrating freedom from the coronavirus and lockdown, Marynn Porter said.

“This is just really cool,” she said. “Just being outside and being with other people again.”

Elisha Sauers, 757-839-4754, elisha.sauers@pilotonline.com