Brewster Celebrates Juneteenth: First-ever Event Draws A Crowd

BREWSTER – Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in the United States. Last week’s Juneteenth celebration in Brewster — the town’s first — aimed to teach people the meaning of the holiday.

“It was a time of jubilation for people,” Jeanne Morrison told the small crowd gathered under a tent at Drummer Boy Park last Wednesday, June 19.

Morrison is a member of the MLK Action Team, an offshoot of Nauset Interfaith Association that helped organize the Brewster celebration. Juneteenth is a commemoration of June 19, 1865, when federal troops marched into Galveston to enforce the final Emancipation Proclamation. “That says to Texas, ‘Get with the program, the slaves are free, you have to comply. The war’s over, and you lost,’” Morrison related. In 1980, Texas became the first state to declare Juneteenth a holiday; Massachusetts followed suit 40 years later, and the day became a federal holiday in 2021.

“It’s important to know that Black people served in the Civil War, both free and escaped, joining the Union army,” she said. Morrison related the stories of two Medal of Honor recipients: John Henry Lawson, a Black Union naval hero, and William Harvey Carney, a Black farmhand from South Sandwich who served in the Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry and fought gallantly in the Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863. There was Harriet Tubman, known best for rescuing fellow enslaved people through the Underground Railroad, but who was also an informant for the Union army, and Susan Baker King Taylor, born as a slave but who served as an Army nurse and later went on to open a school for Black children.

In addition to comments from Morrison, the Brewster Juneteenth celebration featured information booths from various social justice organizations, food, music and crafts for kids. Town Administrator Peter Lombardi said the event was nearly a year in the making, and was an offshoot of discussions at the Brewster Ladies’ Library and the council on aging.

“It’s great to see such a good turnout,” he said. Lombardi also praised Police Chief Heath Eldredge, a member of the MLK Action Team. “He’s been a great resource for us to lean on,” the town administrator said.

“We live in such a white demographic,” said Jeffrey Spalter of Chatham, one of the organizers. Even some of the volunteers admit they hadn’t heard of Juneteenth until just a few years ago, when there was a movement to increase awareness of racial injustice, spurred partially by the murder of George Floyd by a white police officer in 2020. Community dialogues began to grow around the Lower Cape, often initiated by police.

“They reached out to us,” said Karen Boujoukos of the MLK Action Team. Between Harwich and Provincetown, the alliance sponsored “Conversations with Police,” a chance for citizens to meet one-on-one with police officers to have frank discussions about race and policing. Staffing the table at Brewster’s Juneteenth event was Deputy Harwich Police Chief Kevin Considine, who said the program has been a great success.

The Rev. Wesley Williams, retired from the United Methodist Church in Orleans, said he’s glad Brewster has made a point of celebrating Juneteenth.

“I think the will was there,” but the various pieces of the event needed organizing. There is also likely the will to have similar events in other Lower Cape towns, he said. “Perhaps this will be a catalyst for them,” Williams said. “There’s a need for a lot of education.” To that end, the MLK Action Team holds biannual conferences for Lower Cape teachers, bringing them together to discuss ways to bring the story into classrooms. Ultimately, education is how society makes progress against racism, he noted.

“It’s about relationships, not being afraid of one another,” Williams said.