Published: June 27, 2008 05:53 pm         

From eldest to youngest

Juneteenth being kept alive

ROCKWALL — Times have really changed since 1865 when a Union Army general spoke the announcement in Galveston that slaves were free. Citizens continue to live change today and honor the past and present in the annual Rockwall Juneteenth celebration which was held Saturday.

“I’ve been in Rockwall all my life, and there’s whole lots of change,” said Mamie Rockmore who was visiting friends Saturday.

Integration was one change which affected the lives of many in attendance.

Others were noting the nomination of Barak Obama for president, with the Democrat party registering voters.

It is this constant line of history, and the need for family values, which inspires Pastor Joe Robbins to believe that as when he was a child, elders should instruct the youngsters at such gatherings.

Robbins is the pastor of the St. Paul AME Church of Rockwall, and he was instrumental in getting the 2008 Juneteenth celebration organized.

Gloria Williams, namesake of the park at which the celebration was held, was the organizer for years and years. She came late in the day.

“Oh this has made our day,” Robbins said, as Williams arrived late in the afternoon in her “car” — her motorized wheelchair.

“She is great because she has carried this on,” Robbins said.

“I always wanted to do for the community,” Williams said. “I believe in holidays. People ought to celebrate their heritage,” she said.

Robbins agreed.

“Juneteenth spread from Texas to all over the United States,” he said. “We are trying to keep it alive so our young people will know how and why it came to be.”

Juneteenth’s background was taught, he said, until 1965. “All the black schools had black history,” he said. “Each nationality of people ought to know their history,” he said.

“We’ve lost our history. Our children are coming up now, and they are talking about the TAKS test; they are not being taught,” he said.

He motioned to his great great grandson, who was playing with others at the celebration. “I got a five-year old grandson over there. It is not like when we were coming up,” he said. “This day would be when one of the elders would get all the boys and sit ’em down and he would bring it (the history) all the way up to us.”

“It wasn’t ‘did you want to hear’. It was ‘every black male child knew’,” Robbins stressed.

“We would be gathered around our elders’ feet,” Robbins said.

Today, “we have a lost generation, black and white,” Robbins added.

“My grandmother, her motto — she always wanted us to know where we came from,” he added.

Part of that heritage in Texas includes the two readings of General Order Number 3 in 1865.

Though General Union Major General Gordon Granger announced freedom for all slaves in the Southwest from the courthouse on 20th street and Avenue I in Galveston, it wasn’t until that the news was read “on the church steps,” Robbins said, that it became “real.” Reedy Chapel is the first African Methodist Episcopal church in Texas, according to its history. It started in 1848 as a place of worship for black slaves.

From Texas, Juneteenth has spread nationwide.

In Rockwall Saturday, Mayor Bill Cecil opened the festivities with a proclamation.

In attendance was Willie Heard. He was one of those who attended schools both before and after integration, which occurred when he was in the sixth grade. Before it disbanded, he also was a member of the Bourne Avenue Alumni Association, which consisted of former students who attended Bourne Avenue High, under principal Dorris A. Jones. After integration, Heard attended schools in Rowlett, Garland, and South Garland, before finishing at Rockwall High School. His late father, Anderson Heard, was a bus driver for 30 years. His mother is Rhoda Heard. Heard retired in 1993 from a 20 year career in the army.

Eunice Brookins, of Terrell, was on hand to help serve food. “Sam is a friend of mine,” she said, referring to Rockwall former city councilman Sam Buffington, who also is a long-time supporter of Juneteenth in Rockwall.

He also reminded everyone of a benefit show to take place in July, to fund the community center he and others are planning for the site where Saturday’s gathering was.

“I just feel like its a need. The biggest majority of activities we have, we have to go the church. Now is the time to take it to another field. Not that what we do is not churched. It is just the mindset that the town is made up of many people and all of them are not church members,” he said.

Also attending was Earnest Epps of Royse City. As far as Juneteenth, “I just take the day and enjoy it,” he said. He recently had a Royse City road named after him. As he recalled growing up in Cass County in East Texas, and the Juneteenth celebrations, his face broke into a smile and his eyes sparkled. “Down in the country, we would get together out in the pastures and have baseball games. We would be killin’ the goats and having barbecue. We’d have a big old baseball game. Hundreds of people would come,” he said.