JACKSON – The story of Juneteenth started on June 19, 1865, when slaves were told they were free two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
The slaveowners kept their freedom a secret until Major General Gordon Granger marched troops into Galveston, Texas to tell them.
Michelle Washington Wilson lent her talents as a storyteller in a presentation at the township library entitled “When the Cavalry Came to Call.”
“I’m here to talk to you about Juneteenth, a federal holiday signed into law in 2021,” she said. Originating in Galveston, Juneteenth has since been observed annually in various parts of the country, often broadly celebrating African-American culture. President Joseph Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.
“It has been called Freedom Day, Emancipation Day and Juneteenth. Juneteenth is the blend of the word June and nineteenth because it was on June 19th 1865 that people working as slaves in Texas finally got the word that we were free at last,” she said.
She noted, “the celebration started in Texas with church picnics and speeches and spread as black Texans moved elsewhere.”
The story of Juneteenth has moved people who hear of it. She shared people’s reactions to her presentations in the past.
“Just a few months ago I presented another program on Harriet Tubman at the Hamilton Township Library and after the presentation, a woman came up to me and she had many questions about slaves and the United States and where did people go after slavery ended,” she shared.
Washington Wilson said, “I was kind of surprised because I was wondering where had she been but I did detect that she had an accent and it turns out that she was from Scotland. Not every family like my family goes back eight generations in the United States. Not everyone knows American history. Not everyone is native born to the United States.”
She spoke next about visiting a senior living community in Bridgewater called Laurel Circle. “I was presenting ‘Harriet Tubman Trials on the Trail’ and one of the residents said ‘I have a historic document that has been in my family since 1850 and I want to share it with you.’”
The man shared the document with the story teller. “We are the party of law and order. Law comes from the bosom of God and is sacred. Even an imperfect law we will respect and bear with until we can obtain its modification or repeal.”
However, when a law has inequity in its heart, then “the sacredness of law is gone.”
She added that a law that “disgraces our country, invades our conscience which dishonors our religion, which is an outrage upon our sense of justice, we take our stand against the imposition. The fugitive slave law demands all good citizens to be slave capturers. Good citizens cannot be slave capturers any more than light can be darkness.”
Her audience was made up of Jackson Police Chief Matt Kunz and his wife, residents, and Ocean County Human Relations Commission Chair Reisa Sweet and fellow member Reverend William Simmons who spearheaded the “Just Say Hello” program in an effort to open dialogue between people.
She told them, “I was just one of those children who loved to talk all the time even when the teacher was talking and one day, they announced the girls speaking contest so as soon as they asked who wanted to be in it, I raised my hand. That is how I got involved with public speaking which was in 7th grade and continues on today.”
The performer has been a professional story teller for more than 40 years. She is also an educator and workshop facilitator at Monmouth University.
The Atlantic City resident is also an adjunct instructor at Atlantic Cape Community College. In her words, “I bring delight to learning. I have the ability to grab the attention of an audience and hold their focus while educating, entertaining and enlightening through the mesmerizing portions of a story.”
Her other works include stories of legends and lore, the New Jersey Pines and multicultural stories from around the world.
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