Annual Bellingham Juneteenth festival set for Saturday at Maritime Heritage Park
Bellingham is celebrating Black-American history and culture with an annual Juneteenth festival this weekend at Maritime Heritage Park.
At a City Hall ceremony on Monday, the Juneteenth flag was raised, and speakers discussed the importance of honoring June 19 as the day in 1865 that most slaves were freed. That’s when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, letting slaves know about President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, which affected only secessionist states. Slavery officially ended in all U.S. states with ratification of the 13th Amendment later that year.
Mayor Kim Lund spoke at the ceremony, which also featured a rendition of “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing.” The song is widely referred to as the Black National Anthem.
“I think it really maters that Juneteenth is a recognized holiday by the city of Bellingham because it’s an opportunity for us to reflect on our shared values, that we are working to acknowledge the full experience of our history and our humanity for everyone that is part of this community,” Lund told The Bellingham Herald in an interview.
In remarks to about 25 people in attendance, City Council member Skip Williams discussed the continuing struggle for civil rights.
“We always had a vision of moving forward. You had to keep on taking three steps ahead because they’ll knock you two steps back. But as long as we made that one step forward, progress was being made,” Williams said. “As we stand here today in celebration of the day that slavery officially was abolished, we can’t forget our history and our legacy. History matters. History has shaped us. We can’t lose sight of where we’ve been or how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.”
The Juneteenth flag has been raised in a special ceremony for several years in front of City Hall, where two rows of American flags line a walkway to the front steps of the 1930s-era PWA Moderne building. The flag was designed by activist Ben Haith in 1997, featuring a 12-point starburst to mark a new beginning for Black Americans. Inside the starburst is a five-pointed star representing Texas.
Deborah Bineza, the city’s strategic initiatives manager for equity and belonging, told The Herald that Juneteenth is a statement about “true freedom” in America and “a Bellingham for all” locally.
“It symbolizes a hard-fought journey toward freedom, equality, equity in America,” Bineza said in an interview.
City workers and others get a paid holiday Friday, and Miracle Jones of Miraculous Eventz is holding a free festival from 2 to 6 p.m. Saturday at Maritime Heritage Park.
There will be live music, dancing and performances, food trucks and a range of vendor, a “Kids Corner” with games and other activities, and prizes.
