Angela Stribling and Shawn Alfonso Wells were walking out of the council building following a Juneteenth committee meeting, and they were able to hand Swissvale’s Juneteenth flyer to a few young children. Stribling recalls the young girl shrieking as she said, “Oh my gosh, the Bill Henry Band! My grandma will be so excited about this.”
“That’s why we are doing this work. It’s bigger than us. It’s for the next generations,” Stribling, a borough councilperson and member of the Juneteenth Committee, said.
This is the third year of Swissvale’s Juneteenth celebration, which is taking place on Sunday, June 23, from noon to 8 p.m. at Les Getz Memorial Park, presented by the Juneteenth Committee within Swissvale’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.
Freedom for Black people is an ongoing fight and journey. Juneteenth is a day of pride, celebration of life, and celebration of love, many of the Juneteenth Committee members said.
It’s also a celebration of the liberation of slaves and the abolishment of slavery, Stribling said.
Juneteenth is the celebration of June 19, 1865, when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, were notified of their freedom. However, in Texas, enslaved people had already been legally freed with the Emancipation Proclamation that was passed in 1863, two years prior.
By the time June 19, 1865, came, the Civil War had ended and many slaves were considered free, with the official abolishment of slavery coming in December 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
The first Juneteenth celebrations were about celebrating that freedom and trying to reunite with family members who were separated due to enslavement. Stribling credits longtime teacher Opal Lee, considered the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,” with Juneteenth gaining national recognition.
“This holiday is so amazing because it encapsulates the celebration of us,” Fred Quinn, a Juneteenth Committee member, said, “in a way that we as Black people typically celebrate… outside, with cookouts and dancing.”
“When we think about Juneteenth, we think about socio-economic systems that have been put into place that have hindered us,” Shawn Alfonso Wells, vice president of Swissvale Council and member of the Juneteenth Committee, said.
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Gaining freedom during Juneteenth is not the end of the story, because what followed was the Jim Crow era, then the Civil Rights Movement, and a continuous fight toward liberation for Black people.
“This is making sure people understand how precious freedom is and that you are not necessarily completely free until you free yourself from the systems that keep your brain shackled. There is still work to do,” she said.
Alfonso Wells points to injustices like those taking place in Florida, teaching about the benefits of enslavement, as well as the denial of reparations to Oklahoma Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, which she said were “legislative bodies that are trying to put into place actions so that people will never understand what their history is,” she said.
“African Americans, although we are free, there are still things in society that deem that we cannot be who we are. Juneteenth is about pride in yourself, pride knowing that people have accomplished things. If you look at Pittsburgh specifically, the Black female mortality rate is higher than anywhere else,” Alfonso Wells said.
For Black women in Pittsburgh, she said, it is necessary to have that pride and to demand their personhood be acknowledged, “so that when you go to that doctor’s appointment and that doctor is telling you you’re fine, you’ll say, ‘I know that I’m having an issue and I would like it to be addressed.’”
Stribling said that this event taking place is also an accomplishment and adds to the legacy of community in Swissvale. “Juneteenth is our way of being proud of ourselves. The best thing about this community is that the entire community shows up. We see a lot of different Swissvalians coming out. Everybody is welcome.”
Swissvale’s Juneteenth Committee is multicultural, including members Fred Quinn, Weldianne Scales, Leland Scales, Vladimir Alfonso Pillot, Andrea Scapicchio, George Thomas, Natasha Tokowicz, Shawn Alfonso Wells and Angela Stribling
Quinn became a council member last year and this was his first year on the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee and being able to assist in the Juneteenth planning. For Quinn, Juneteenth means liberation. “I think that it’s important for us now, certainly after the George Floyd protests, to show what liberation looks like, especially to our younger generation,” Quinn said.
Quinn said that Juneteenth is something that America as a whole is learning more about as we go along. “Slavery was the biggest blood stain on this country since its inception. Our freedom needs to be celebrated, especially now when our rights are still in jeopardy,” Quinn said.
“I’m not only Black, but I’m openly queer as well. So with Juneteenth being in Pride Month, it is empowering. Liberation is freedom for all minorities, for all underserved communities, and being able to stand with each other fighting for the voiceless,” Quinn said.
Attendees of Swissvale’s Juneteenth Committee can expect a historical explanation and remembrance of Juneteenth, a bike raffle, a mini job fair, spoken word performances, free haircuts, multiple food vendors, face painting, a bounce house, musical performances, and more. There will also be performances from members of the Divine Nine, which represent the nine historically Black Greek-letter organizations.
“It is a full showcasing and celebration of the Black experience,” Stribling said.