MISSOULA — Juneteenth is an annual federal holiday to commemorate the emancipation of the last enslaved African Americans.
It marks the day in 1865 when Union soldiers, many of them African Americans themselves, arrived in Galveston, Texas, ot announce that they were free.
(WATCH: Missoulians gather at Fort Missoula to celebrate Juneteenth)
On Friday, Members of the Missoula Black Collective held their fifth celebration of Juneteenth, with community members of all colors coming to hear speakers talk about the history of the holiday.
“Some have termed it Emancipation Day. Some have called it Freedom Day, America's Second Independence Day, and African American Independence Day,” Chris Young-Greer, an organizer for the Montana Black Collective Missoula, said.
The event, in part, started with an Indigenous welcome by Tara Weaselhead Running Crane.
“As an indigenous woman, I know that our histories, our struggles, and our futures are deeply intertwined. This is stolen land built by stolen hands. We share a foundational truth that our survival, our joy, and our liberation have always depended on the strength of our relations,” Weaselhead Running Crane said.
Speakers, some a part of the Montana Black Collective Missoula, followed and spoke on the history of Juneteenth as well as the history of the Juneteenth flag.
“Juneteenth reminds us that emancipation was not a single moment but a process, a process that unfolded unevenly across time and place, and that the struggle to fully realize freedom continued long after it was declared. Nor did freedom arrive equally or peacefully. Many formerly enslaved people learned that they were free only when the federal troops arrived so in the force of emancipation. Others were pressured or coerced into continuing to work through threats of violence and economic dependence. There were beatings, there were killings across the South. Emancipation was often met with resistance, intimidation, and efforts to maintain racial control,” Murray Pierce, a member of the Montana Black Collective Missoula, said.
“June 19th, 1865, represented a day that enslaved black people in Galveston, Texas became Americans under the law. And while African Americans today are still fighting for equality and justice, Haight and those colors, said those colors symbolized a continuous commitment of people in the United States to do better and to live up to American ideal for liberty and justice for all.
Other members of the Montana Black Collective Missoula also delivered powerful poems to the audience.
“I pledge allegiance, to humankind. Connected by the air on earth and to the freedom for people everywhere. May we never abuse the dominion over our land and may we forever unite to advance our human race as one,” one member recited.
