Black River Technical College employees participated in the Eddie Mae Herron Center Juneteenth celebration Saturday.
BRTC President Dr. Martin Eggensperger gave the invocation beginning the celebration. Then Cubscout Pack 45, Boy Scout Troop 45, and Boy Scout Girls Troop 6045G lined up alogside the flag pole as the American flag was lowered, folded, and retired.
BRTC Dean of Business and Technical Education Phillip Dickson presented the meaning of the folding of the flag to the crowd as the flag was retired, and a brand-new American flag was raised. After which, the national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played.
Next, history about the Black National Anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing” was presented. “Lift Every Voice and Sing was written by James Weldon Johnson.
When he wrote it in 1900, the scholar and poet James Weldon Johnson did not set out to create a cultural phenomenon. That year, a group of men in Jacksonville, Florida wanted to honor former US President Abraham Lincoln with a birthday celebration. Johnson’s contribution was a poem he asked his younger brother, John Rosamond Johnson, to write the accompanying score.
When it was complete, James taught the song’s lyrics to a choir of 500 black children, all students at the segregated school he was the principal of at the time. On the day of the event, the brothers brought printed copies of the words to share with the community so others could sing along. “The lines of this song repay me in an elation, almost of exquisite anguish,” wrote James in an excerpt from a 1935 collection of poems.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) declared the song the “Negro National Anthem” in 1919, one year before James was chosen as the organization’s first black executive secretary and 12 years before the Star-Spangled Banner was adopted as the US national anthem. After the history was presented, the song was played.
Pocahontas Mayor Keith Sutton presented the proclamation made by the city council in 2022 declaring Juneteenth Freedom Day.
BRTC Vice President of Student Affairs Jason Smith gave a speech about the history and meaning of Juneteenth.
“In 1865, several months after the war was finished, the news arrived in Texas that slavery was over. It was a symbolic end to a terrible era in U.S. history. It is said that joyous cries rang out. You can only imagine how it felt to hear those words when the union soldiers arrived.
For many years after, people in Texas celebrated the event. In the 1930’s there was a proclamation in Texas to make Juneteenth a state holiday. It became an official state holiday in 1979 by the legislature of the state of Texas. It only became an official federal holiday a couple of years ago.
It’s about remembering and reflecting on a terrible time in the past when we weren’t the best we could be and we come together as a community and as individuals to pledge that it won’t happen again, not on our watch. History repeats itself, so we must always be on guard. The same sins that caused slavery, hate and greed still exist today,” said Smith.
BRTC employees present were President Dr. Martin Eggensperger, Vice President of Student Affairs Jason Smith, Dean of Business and Technical Education Phillip Dickson, Director of Student Development/Dean of Students Dane Dillion, Admissions Counselor Erin Mathews, and BRTC”S beloved Black Hawk mascot Stryker.