MSU Scholars Reflect on the Sustained Significance and Impact of Juneteenth

MSU Today with Russ White

In this edition of the MSU Today podcast, four MSU scholars discuss the sustained significance and impact of Juneteenth.

“I am not one who grew up participating in or knowing about Juneteenth,” says Dr. Tamura Lomax (she/her), Foundational Associate Professor in MSU’s Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS). “I didn't learn about it until sometime in high school in California. I lived my life between California and New York. And I'd never heard about it in New York, but in California I remember hearing something about it but not really understanding what it is.”

Lomax explains what she means when, as a historian, she says the thing about Juneteenth that strikes her is the multiple attempts at freedom.

“What's important to me is that, yes, Juneteenth is a celebration, but there's still this delayed sense of gratification in terms of freedom. So that's what's important to me in terms of my work, in terms of noting that. And noting how Black folks free and enslaved have been forced to navigate, this idea of freedom while living a life that is truly within a context of unfreedom.”

Dr. Shondra L Marshall (she/her) is a national president of MSU Black Alumni.

“I would like to salute the student body and all the excellent and phenomenal work they’re doing at MSU. We push, and we move forward. MSU Black Alumni was officially founded in 1980. Under my administration, I have elevated three areas of organizational focus. They are engagement, enhancement, and evolvement. We have an endowment which includes several named endowments at the institution. And that actually was started off at one of our first homecoming events in October of 1980. At that event, they passed around a pumpkin and they raised money, which included $1000 to earmark our endowment at the institution. And today we have over $2.5 million in endowments.

“When I think about freedom to liberation, how is MSUBA helping the institution get to liberation? Are we holding the institution accountable and looking at every policy, practice, rule, hire, and program with an anti-Black lens. What I have witnessed under the current administration is some progress, but I'm looking forward to see true change. And to me, liberation looks like access, opportunity, programming, resources, and freedom. And so the question that I like to ask is really just are we thriving? We're getting to liberation and the notion that we are living in a sense of freedom, but there's a sense of unfreedom that we are experiencing. How are we together thriving?”

Sharron D. Reed-Davis (she/her) is a senior at MSU studying political science pre-law and human development and family studies. She’s the former two-term president of the Black Students’ Alliance (BSA).

“I didn't grow up celebrating Juneteenth,” she says. “I didn't know much about it. I actually grew up celebrating the Fourth of July. But once I got to college and started getting involved in BSA, that is where I learned about Juneteenth and about what our celebration is supposed to be and when it's supposed to be. Not with the red, white and blue. Not celebrating a country and an institution that has held us down and has taken us for granted.

“I think people should care about Juneteenth and want to uplift Juneteenth because not all people were free when everyone was free. Black people weren't free. We're still not free. So this small celebration that we get to have is when we as people got some type of freedom. It was just one step in the steps that we're still taking to become entirely free people. So this small celebration is something big for us. It may not be when everyone was free, but that's because we always have to be last. We always have to be the ones that are enslaved, that are taken for granted, that are pushed around. So this small celebration on Juneteenth is something that's big to us. And that's why people should want to celebrate and care about Juneteenth.”

Stratton C. Lee III (he/him) is the president of Michigan State University Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association.

“When I think about the significance of Juneteenth, I think about it being a celebration of freedom and liberation,” Lee says. “It serves as a reminder to our community of the lives that have been lost - for those who have fought for freedom and liberation coming from the continent of Africa to living their lives here in the U.S. to those of us who are alive today. This has been a fight for African Americans for absolute quality of life, rights and property. We memorialize those who have died and stand in forceful protest of those who have killed them. It is a celebration. And so when we think about liberation and freedom, we think about what does that mean? And what does that look like in word, action, and in deed?

“It's important for us to come together at these times. To remember our past. To reflect on our shared histories. To learn about our various experiences and to come together collectively to identify what we want to do as a community as we move forward. It speaks to the resilience of our community and the people within it.

“Upon our freedom and liberation, it finally meant that in theory, we are all free. But when you get into what freedom actually looks like, you recognize that our history has been bound to this sense of delay. Many in our communities have experienced those long-term impacts of Jim Crow and segregation and Black Codes, even though we had the Emancipation, the Proclamations, and the Thirteenth Amendment. There are those in this nation who fought tooth and nail to ensure that Black folks would never be able to truly experience that sense of freedom. And on these days and these times where we are able to come together as a community, this is our space to celebrate. To come together and to experience what joys and pleasures we can as a people and as a community. There are many to celebrate and there's much to smile about, even though things sometimes look ugly on the outside.”

“To me this is a celebration of blackness,” adds Marshall. “Juneteenth at MSU on June 19th is called Juneteenth Celebration: From Freedom to Liberation. This is the first time MSU has hosted a university-wide celebration to commemorate the ending of slavery in this country. This recognition is really huge for a predominantly white institution. And what I'm most thrilled about is the unity across our affiliate groups, which are represented here today: Black Student Alliance, Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators, of course Black Alumni, and also the Department of African American and African Studies (AAAS) and Black Graduate Student Association as well. It shows the power and unity, and it clearly shows that institutional synergy as we have a trustee and leaders across the institution engaged. The event is going to happen on June 19th from 12:00 to 2:00 and more information, including how to RSVP is on the website of the office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives. This is a true celebration with music, with food, community and more.”

“I want to thank both Lee and Shondra for really bringing us back to the Black joy and bringing in that balance because that's very important,” Lomax adds. “I think about the ancestors, and I am amazed. I spent 10 years in what we call the stacks in my graduate program at Vanderbilt reading firsthand slave sources. And I've alw...