(Music) Announcer: Support for Juneteenth A community conversation is brought to you in part by the city of Maumee and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

Charles Welch: First of all, thank you, everyone, and welcome, to this, premiere, Juneteenth celebration.

My name is Charles Welch, and I, I'll be your moderator for today.

So, to our panelists, I would like you to, from right to left or left to right, whatever.

Introduce yourself briefly.

Starting with you.

Sara Eiden: Hi.

My name is Sarah Iden.

I'm the supervisor here at the indoor theater and a resident of Waterville.

Hi, my name is Carla Thomas.

I am a social justice writer and a community advocate.

Linda Lucas: Hi, I'm Linda Lucas, and I am a resident here of Miami.

And I live in a house that was pre-Civil War.

Sheila Howard Hello, my name is Sheila Howard.

I am a reporter for The Blade.

I'm originally from Detroit and I now reside in Toledo.

Charles Welch: I have to, admit that I did not know about Juneteenth until much later in life as I should have.

Can would anyone of any of you please, explain.

When you find out about Juneteenth and how you found out.

Sheila Howard: I thought abou that, in regards to this event.

My cousin told me about Juneteenth, about, 20 plus years ago.

So I was in my 40s.

I was, excited to hear about it, but sad at the same time, wonderin why I had just heard about it.

And she explained what it wa and how the how the slaves did know they were free.

And as a 40 something year old person, I was kind of in shock as to why, this, this particular part of history was omitted from, the classrooms or even just from conversations, you know, in the home.

Charles Welch: Anyone else?

Sara Eiden: I personall don't think that I heard of it, until it was being signed, as a national holiday.

I grew up in Ohio and, in a predominantly white community, so it's not something that was included in our history books, not something that I had heard of.

And, you know, lik they said in the documentary, it it kind of was taught that when the Emancipation Proclamation came to slaves were free and that was that.

So it was kind of, you know, world shattering to think that there was additional time past that point where we still had people enslaved, and it wasn't just cut and dry, that, okay, we're done with that.

Yep.

I would have to say I didn't learn until later adulthood, about Juneteenth.

And it probably was when they, made it a holiday.

Linda Lucas: So, yeah, I was going to say I, started out life as a school teacher, and I lived on the East Coast and it was a very integrated community.

I didn't I didn't know the term Juneteenth, but I remember in talking with the kids and learning that, you know, teaching history, that we did learn that it was it took forever for the information to get to all of the states.

What I didn't understand at that time wa and I thought it was really nice the way they said it in the the documentary is that, you know we didn't have the newspapers, we didn't have the internet, we didn't have that.

And basically the people that had enslaved others just let it happen.

And so for two years, they knew they didn't.

These were no longer there people.

And it just let it happen.

And I remember just being really startled.

So it wasn't until I moved here to the Ohio area that I learned the term Juneteenth.

That's interesting.

And but, you know, I think it's I think it's, not interesting, but it's something to realize that, you know, many of us really just didn't know.

We just didn't know what?

I'm sorry.

Yes.

Carla Thomas: I want to add to what Linda said, because I think, they said it in the movie as well.

The narrative is pushed that it wa because the news traveled slow.

But in reality, I think it was just it was because of oppression and greed and, you know, the desire to keep their slaves.

Charles Welch: I'm curious what parts, of the documentary to each of you?

What part of the documentary stood out to you?

What part of it kind of hit home?

You know, you're always going to be the first person to answer the questions.

Is that we're going to do today.

Is that what we're doing today?

No.

What part of the documentary stood out to you?

Sheila Howard: I took notes and, one of the phrases said was, some things are so painful that we want to forget them.

Slavery is one of them.

And I think, it might be human nature in a way, to, want to bury painful things.

But when it's part of history, we learning, we grow from the truth.

Regardless of how painful it is.

And, I, I wrote an article, a couple days ag about a Juneteenth celebration.

And one of the comments under the article.

I, I'll read it to you.

It said the Civil War ended 160 years ago, and it's time to get over it.

And not keep rehashing it.

Yeah.

So I found that kind of, painful.

Painfu that some people don't want to.

They don't want to deal with the truth.

And just sweep it under the rug.

But even though it's painful I think it's important that we, other other cultures or other, thing that have happened in history.

There's no issue with talking about it and dealing with it.

But for some reason, this particular one, folk want to sweep it under the rug.

So that's what stood out most to me.

Charles Welch: Anyone else?

Linda Lucas: Yeah, I was going to say what stood out to me the most was when they drew the line through Galveston and showed how it, divide did.

Was it Browntown.

Free.

Freedom free town?

Freedman's town.

And that's exactly what happened in, Toledo when I-75 came throug and it went through the junction community and the door quarte and it's it's not recovered yet.

And that was I don't know what is i 60 years ago so or 50 years ago.

But it's that just really struck me that it didn't.

It comes across to me as intentional, an intentional division, not, oh, this is the easiest way to make the highway.

No, I think it was intentional.

All around the country.

Charles Welch: Anyone else?

Carla Thomas: What stood out to me was, when they talked about the wealth of America being built on unpaid slave labor, and then also when the troops came to let them know that they were free.

It just made me think about, okay they're in the field or wherever they are doing slave things, and someone is tapping the to tell them that they're free.

And the way the movie was able to share and express why that's worthy of celebration.

And then, like Sheila mentioned, the comments that are that we find on social media under posts.

I've see them.

I see them daily under the post Celebrating Juneteenth.

It makes me wonder, why are we?

Is it so easy for us to celebrate Cinco de Mayo or Saint Patrick's Day, but not Juneteenth?

Sara Eiden: Yeah, I, I think, I think what really stood out for me was, again, the amount of time and the gaps in how we're educated about, you know, this portion of our history.

You know, w we see the two and a half years to, to have, you know, the next point of freedom.

And then we have people, you know, like ourselves and like the woman in the documentary that we aren't educated until later in our lives of, you know, what happened whe it happened, who it happened to.

And I think for me, it really stuck that this is a point of, okay, I know I now have the responsibility of teaching, you know, sharing this information.

Stories being told is how our history passes through generations.

And, when you know the stories, it's they're yours to tell.

Now.

Charles Welch: I think that I'm glad that the documentary didn't, focus on Juneteenth and then everything was okay.

That was just the beginning of, you know, the struggle and everything like that.

My my question is, where do we.

And from the audience as well.

Where do we start to educate each other?

Our children?

You know, like I said, each othe and our children about slavery.

Where do we start to educate?

Do we do we start in school?

Do we start at home?

Where do we start to educate?

Carla Thomas: Well, I thought it was in school, you know, but clearly we we haven't been taught our truest history.

And to expect it to be taught at home.

Unless you were raised in a house where they talked about Juneteenth or any of the civil rights movement, you just don't have that educational piece because you are basicall relying on in the school system.

I would have thought the school system, would have been a fair place for us to get an education.

But now, speaking today, in this time and space, I would say in your home and if not in your home than in a community gathering where you know people are sharing the information.

Charles Welch: Anyone else?

Linda Lucas: I think as parents, I think it's at and grandparents because it's important to be proactive in helping kids learn.

And anybody who knows me out in the audience, I know they know that I tend to have a little wicked humor in me.

And since my son is not here, I'll talk about him.

But when he was when he was in, third grade, he had to do a book report and he said, I need to do a book report on a famous American.

So being I have a library background, I got him a book on Sacajawea and gave him that, and he read that and did a good report.

And then he says, well, I need to do one about somebody that was in the military.

Okay.

So I gave him a book report, a book on, Harriet Tubman.

And he read that, and then he came back and he says, now we have to do one on a famous scientist.

Are there any men out there that.

And I thought, okay, I've gotten somewher because that was his question.

Are there any famous men?

And so sometimes it just takes pushing the envelope of learning about these other people.

So grandparents, parents and of course, there's always the library.

Charles Welch: Always.

Sara Eiden: Yeah.

I have I have a five year old at home.

So these these are the types of questions I ask myself.

Navigating through the world today and in current events and talking to my so about the things that, you know, we see and hear on television and on the radio.

Thing that he may pick up from friends at school and discussing, you know.

That sounds like a weird thing that was said.

Let's let's talk more about that.

And trying to find ways to meet him, where he's at from an intellectual standpoint and understanding the world around him.

Is is more than just him.

So I think making those connections of where he's at and finding places like the library, and in our community where we can, talk with people who look, think and act differently than ourselves.

Charles Welch: I was struck by the, the, the slave Bible, and the use of Christianity to to keep people enslaved.

Any thoughts or comments about that particular area, of the documentary from any one of the panel?

Linda Lucas: I'll just say that when I watched that, because I did do my homework and watched it before.

That was the first time I had ever heard that.

And so I'm just I was shocked that because I know that over time, I've often thought, okay, I'm a Christian and I believe in this whole community of everybody.

How could people be oppressed like that and continue to believe?

And so that was that was really eye opening to me.

But it also even when they and I thought the picture that, of the blue eyed Jesus was quite striking that they said, this is part of our we have to understand this is what we learned.

And it is, you know, you what you learned is what you feels most comfortable.

And so I can see that.

But it just it just struck me that, that I had no idea there was a black Bible or a slave Bible.

Charles Welch: America is a is a fairly young nation.

The Americas, when you look at the grand scheme of things, America is a fairly young nation.

This was 1865.

My grandfather not my great great grandfather.

My grandfather was born in 1905, 1906.

And so just a few years after this.

So, thoughts on from anyone on the panel, thoughts on the time line from then until now about it being so short or so long or, like I said, we're fairly young nation.

Thoughts on that.

Sheila Howard My grandmother was born in 1898, and I had an older grandmother because she didn't have my dad, and she, she was, in her 40s.

So, when I saw 1898, when she told me she was born in 1898, you know, as a kid, you know, that was like, wow, 18, you know, and, her, her, grandmother was a slave.

And one of my regrets is not sitting down with her, like, with a tape recorder to get some of the stories, you know, documented of what her grandmothe and her mother, shared with her.

I truly regret that.

But as a person in your 20s, you, you know, you'r not really thinking about that.

But here and now, it does remind me of just it really wasn't that long ago.

If my grandmother had memories and her mother had memories, it wasn't that long ago.

Charles Welch: Right?

I it's interesting because, when whenever we have family reunions, we we make sure that we get stories from everyone that we can get so that we don't forget.

And I, I have, one of my children to come today.

I make sure I write down the lineage of our family history just because even if it's sits on a piece of paper and we don't know the context of it just so they can, understand where the where we come from, when it when it comes to, remembering, things of that nature.

Do does.

Does anyone on the panel have, Do you keep family histories?

Do you write down family history?

Do you, do you do you do you tell stories in your family?

About, things about the past?

Carla Thomas: No.

My mom was the only one who that I know of who wrote our family's story.

And she wrote it in poetry form, but I. I don't have stories passed down.

Sheila Howard: We do.

The grandmother that I was speaking of was on my father's side, but on my mother's side, it was my actual cousi that told me about Juneteenth.

And she's kind of like our family historian now.

She gathered storie from her mother and some aunts, purposefully, she gathered stories.

I want to say probably around the time she told me about Juneteenth, she was doing that.

So she does have stories, and, I'm not sure how they're documented.

Maybe just written, on paper.

But they're they they do exist.

Charle Welch: It's interesting because, and like I said, I write down, our family history, and it's sad but it's interesting that we can I my personal family, I can trace it back to the slave master, and then it stops.

You know, you can only go.

And I remember writing it down.

Well, the slave master's name was Williams, and that's it.

That's that's as far as we can go.

When Juneteenth became a holiday, there was apprehension from different parts of the country or different people or whatever about it.

Any idea or any speculation on why?

Just the the apprehension about celebrating or acknowledging Juneteenth and the just the freedom of slaves?

Sara Eiden: I think for probably a lot of white people, it's hard to confront that part of history.

As you know, people in our ancestry have a different attachment to to that piece.

You know, ancestors down the line of mine may have been slave owners, and it's it's hard to sit here in 2025 and acknowledge that that may be a part of my ancestry.

But it's something that we have to acknowledge.

We have to see history for what truthfully happened.

And, I think it's important to acknowledge Juneteenth for what it is.

And I think it's hard for people to see that one independence day is not an independence Day for everybody.

Charles Welch: Anyone else?

Linda Lucas: Yeah.

I think, for those reasons, but as well for white and black people, we weren't raised celebrating Juneteenth the way we were raised, celebrating the 4th of July because it is a fairly new holiday.

So we came out of the womb celebrating the 4th of July, Saint Patrick's Day.

I was coloring leprechauns and clovers.

Do I look Irish?

You know, I mean, in school it was is it's just part of our history, like Easter and Christmas.

So for one, it's going to take time.

Forums like this help it.

There was a lady sitting behind me and she said, wow I didn't realize, you know this.

I just learned a lot out of this.

It's just watching the film.

And so.

And that's for black people and white people.

Because just because I'm blac doesn't mean I'm in the habit.

And we're in the practice of celebrating Juneteenth.

I I'm still learning.

I call i my the reeducation of me phase, because I'm still learning, because it wasn't included in our history books.

And then I also think racism has a has something to do with it as well.

So there's a good side and a bad side as to why it's not widely accepted.

Sheila Howard: I learn agai at about Juneteenth from church.

My cousin, was a pastor and our church started celebrating it in Detroit.

So my church has been celebrating Juneteenth for at least 20 years.

It was I had n idea was going to be a holiday, but folks were talking about or advocating for it becoming a holiday for many, many years.

So I knew about it.

And my church, we did celebrate Juneteenth.

So it was exciting when I heard that, you know it'd become a national holiday.

Linda Lucas: Sometimes I think people have fear in, as a white woman, it's fear of the unknown.

But I think some people are fearful because they anticipate they're going to get something taken away.

And it it's just like most anything else, nothing gets taken away.

We just make the place better.

So that analogy that they had in the movie where he talks about how America is like a home and it has some bad plumbing and it has some bad electrical, and it has a bad foundation and we need to fix it but we have to fix it together.

So to me, I just really feel like that question is, is basically pushing it, saying we've got to do this together and we got to put aside our fear and say, let's do it.

Charles Welch: What can you, say to the people who are listening, who may be listening, people who are watching, who may be apprehensive or on the fence or totally against another national holiday?

What can you say?

What would that would you like to give to them to embrace the Juneteenth holiday and the history behind it?

Sheila Howard: I would say, holidays are special times set aside to to remember, to celebrate.

And this, this particular holiday means, well for me just as much as any other.

And I'm a storyteller by by trade.

And I would encourage peopl to tell the story of Juneteenth to their families, to their friends.

I love forms like this.

You know, tell people about the documentary.

Share it.

Ask other folks to or encourag folks to watch the documentary.

We just watch as well as, this particular panel discussion.

Linda Lucas: I was just going to say that when you think about how to celebrate Juneteenth or any other holiday, it's a celebration and it' celebrating humankind and it's realizing that every little child that walks past you is one of God's creatures, and we should all be treated in a loving fashion.

Carla Thomas: I would ask the question, if you are opposed to celebrating Juneteenth, why?

You know what?

What makes you opposed to it?

Because it's it's a people, all of us in this room benefit off of unpaid labor.

And if a people are celebrating a freedom, why can't we celebrate with them?

So I would just ask you to ask yoursel why, if you are opposed to it.

Sara Eiden: I would sa if you're feeling apprehension, take the first step and learn and ask questions.

I feel a lot of the folks that I talked to who say, I don't understand why this has to be a holiday.

I don't understand what it is or what it means.

So take the first step and educate.

Ask questions.

Reach out to someone who does know, and then join in the celebration.

Charles Welch: That's right.

I wish we had a lot more time because, it's it's so it's so, interestin that when when things, when we, when we sit down and we discuss how much we find that we have in common and how much that we find that we think alike, and we get answers and we get we get resolution and we get understanding.

And so that's really, that's really a benefit of having you all here.

Today, I think it was, was maybe James Baldwin, I believe, might have said, to be Africa American is to I'm paraphrasing because I'm not sure to be African American is to be African with no root or foundation and where you come from, but American without the benefits of being American.

And so it's, it's it's it's interesting that there's pushback about this national holiday.

But like you said, we grew up, celebrating everything else.

But what's what's one more.

I would like to thank everyone for your questions.

I know we didn't get to all of them.

And your comments, someone made a comment that we might have, there's more deleted information in our history books than there is information that can be told.

Please give our panelists a round of applause.

And thank you all for for joining us and we will see you next time.

Thank you.

Announcer: Support for Juneteenth.

A community conversation is brought to you in part by the city of Miami and by viewers like you.

Thank you.

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