LYNN – The North Shore Juneteenth Association held its flag-raising ceremony Tuesday at outside City Hall.
Juneteenth, or June 19, is a federal holiday commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African Americans. It marks the day in 1865 that all enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned of their freedom — a full 2.5 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
While Lynn City Hall has flown the Juneteenth flag for the past five summers, this flag-raising ceremony was the first since President Biden acknowledged Juneteenth as a federal holiday on June 17 of last year.
After DJ A Trike Called Funk faded out Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke,” Nicole McClain, founder and president of the North Shore Juneteenth Association, opened the ceremony by speaking about Juneteenth’s history. She said that although Juneteenth was only recently declared a federal holiday, the fight for Juneteenth to be acknowledged federally is an old one.
“Two hundred at fifty enslaved Black Americans from across this country were held in Galveston, Texas, which is why Juneteenth is celebrated all over the United States, not just in Texas. The acknowledgement of Juneteenth as a federal holiday was a long-fought battle. The fight did not begin last year,” McClain said. “The National Juneteenth Observance Foundation has been pushing for this to happen for years. We are extremely excited to see the fruit of that labor and rejoice.”
While Lynn resident Tunisha Guy-Figueroa sang the Black National Anthem, “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” the Lynn English Marine Corps JROTC raised the Juneteenth Flag. Spoken-word Poet Big Brotha Sadi recited a few of his poems before Rev. Dr. Andre Bennett took the mic and spoke about the current fight for racial equality.
“I’m looking at the two flags, and I’m wondering why that one (the Juneteenth flag) is so much lower than that one (the American flag), and maybe that’s something we can figure out at some point.
“African Americans voted a Black woman into the office of the vice presidency, and what we saw happened after that? Sweeping legislation across the land to ensure that her vote and her voice was silenced,” Bennett said.
Bennett said that when he first came to the United States, a white police officer in Lynn pulled him over and harassed him in front of his children. He added that the movement for racial equality will not stop until Black Americans are not just treated better, but treated as equals.
“The first thing they did to me when I came here 14 years ago, was strip me of my pride and my dignity when I was pulled over by a white police officer in Lynn and was called every name in the book, except a child of God, in the presence of my 14-year-old daughter and my 5-year-old son. I was called ‘boy’ and everything else,” Bennett said. “We don’t want better housing, we want equal housing. We don’t want better schools, we want equal schools. Better’s going to be defined by the white man, by the white school district. We want equal housing. If you won’t live in it, we’re not living in it. If your children won’t go to school there, our children aren’t going there.”
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
