Juneteenth was celebrated Friday afternoon during an event at Aurora University featuring music, performances, speeches, a flag-raising ceremony and more.
The event, hosted by Aurora in Black, the Aurora African American Heritage Advisory Board and the Quad County Urban League, offered a “focus on education, empowerment and community celebration,” according to a press release from organizers.
Juneteenth — officially celebrated on June 19 — commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. While President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865, that the last enslaved African Americans were freed in Texas after the end of the Civil War.
The annual Juneteenth flag-raising ceremony in Aurora is named in honor of Scheketa Hart-Burns, who made history in 1991 as the first Black person elected to the Aurora City Council. Hart-Burns served on the council for 32 years before she died on Juneteenth in 2023.
The event kicked off with a March of Black Excellence that included more than 100 Black young people ranging from middle school through college age before the flag-raising and a performance of the Black National Anthem sung by Chicago recording artist Nialand.
A five-hour Juneteenth Youth Summit on campus preceded the flag-raising ceremony.
“This is being held at somewhere other than a city location as we focus on higher education and we really underscore post-secondary lives for our youth, whether it’s college or trade school. We want to begin to center the conversation on those areas,” Clayton Muhammad, founder of the Aurora in Black group, said. “While we’ve used a city property in the past, we want to expose our youth to the college campus.”
A press release from Aurora in Black noted that Juneteenth became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
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In Illinois, Juneteenth was signed into law as an official state holiday on June 16, 2021, when Gov. JB Pritzker signed House Bill 3922. The law took effect Jan. 1, 2022.
Awards including the Junior Trailblazer Award were later given to elementary school entrepreneurs at the event Friday, along with $20,000 in scholarships to the Class of 2026 Cowherd Scholars, which Muhammad said “is one of the big anchors this year, which are normally presented in February.”
A crowd of well over 200 gathered on the quad of the university to witness the event that many said promoted freedom, unity and understanding.
Elijah Santana of Aurora said the day was important “because it highlights the freedom of Blacks and it united a lot of races who can congregate with each other.”
Vanessa Gaddy of Aurora waited for the start of the ceremony with her sister-in-law Betty Gaddy and said that Friday’s event was important “because we need to remember and celebrate.”
“We have to recognize all that our forefathers have gone through and now we have this celebration,” she said. “I feel like this is gaining traction and there are more celebrations all over Aurora I’ve noticed.”
Betty Gaddy of Oswego said that “we have to understand that our history is our history.”
“We find the roots of our history and know that our ancestors worked so hard and diligently for this to come about for us to celebrate,” she said.
She looked at her granddaughter Niana Wagner, 5, of Oswego, who was playing nearby and predicted what was happening now “would make a better world for her in the future.”
“We stand here today and we and others are going to make sure that that happens. It’s not just a Black thing or a white thing it’s for all of us to embrace each other and understand where you come from and what you’ve been through,” she said.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.