Wednesday, June 22, 2022 — 3
News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Second Juneteenth Annual
Symposium opens with
Opal Lee and discussions of
healing
UMich welcomed the start of the Second Annual Juneteenth
Symposium on June 15, held in collaboration with the Ann Arbor
branch of the NAACP
The University of Michigan
recognized the start of the Second
Annual Juneteenth Symposium on
June 15, a four-day event held in
collaboration with the Ann Arbor
branch of the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP). With “Celebrate,
Educate, Inspire” as this year’s
theme, the symposium will take
place from June 15 to June 18 and will
include a series of speeches, panels,
workshops and performances to
celebrate Black excellence and bring
attention to issues that concern the
Black community. The majority of
the events will be held in a hybrid
format
with
pre-registration
required.
Juneteenth
celebrates
the
emancipation of enslaved African
Americans following the end of the
Civil War. Though the Emancipation
Proclamation declaring freedom for
all enslaved peoples in the rebelling
states went into effect in 1863,
slavery was not officially ended
across the United States until the
ratification of the 13th Amendment
in 1865. In Texas, slavery continued
for two years after the passage of
the Emancipation Proclamation,
until General Order No. 3 — which
is dated June 19, 1865 — informed
the state’s enslaved people of their
legal freedom. Juneteenth has been
celebrated on June 19 across the
United States since the 19th century,
but it was not until June 17, 2021
that President Joe Biden signed
Juneteenth’s status as a federal
holiday into law.
On the first day of the symposium,
activist Opal Lee, also known as
the “Grandmother of Juneteenth,”
talked about her journey of fighting
to make Juneteenth a federal
holiday in her opening keynote
speech. Since 2016, Lee has led 2.5-
mile walks in various cities to bring
attention to Juneteenth. The walks
symbolize the number of years that
it took for news of the Emancipation
Proclamation to reach Texas in 1865.
In September 2016, Lee left
TINA YU
Daily Staff Reporter
CAMPUS LIFE
Fort Worth, Texas, and began her
1400-mile trek across the United
States, ending on the steps of the
U.S. Capitol. She hoped to speak
directly
with
President
Barack
Obama about making Juneteenth a
federal holiday. In 2021, she started
a petition for a federally-recognized
Juneteenth holiday on Change.org.
The petition received support from
multiple celebrities, including Sean
“P. Diddy” Combs and Usher. Her
years of activism eventually led to a
Juneteenth holiday being signed into
law in 2021—with Lee in attendance.
During
her
opening
keynote
speech, Lee talked about the moment
she found out that Biden would sign
the bill making Juneteenth a federal
holiday.
“P. Diddy helped me get 1.5 million
signatures to take to Congress,” Lee
said. “We took them to Congress
and we were ready to take that many
more when we got the word to go to
the White House, that the president
was going to sign the Juneteenth bill
into law.”
Lee discussed the role of education
in freeing people from homelessness
and unemployment, as well as
providing the freedom to be who they
are.
“The recognition is for all of us
to be free,” Lee said. “We realize
that we have a common goal, and
that is to dispel the disparages that
we have in this country. I’m talking
about (how) we need books in the
education system to tell the history as
it occurred. We can erase history, and
so we need to learn about it. We need
to be able to be sure (history) doesn’t
happen again. Freedom is the thing
that I’ll cherish.”
Lee said freedom should be
valued, celebrated and fought for by
everyone.
“What we need to know is this is not
a Black thing,“ Lee said. “(It) is not a
Texas thing. Freedom is for all of us, and
none of us are free until we’re all free …
So (white people have) got to learn that,
hey, this is for you too. And I advocate
that we celebrate freedom from the 19th
of June to the Fourth of July.”
Courtesy of Roni Kane
Read more at michigandaily.com
Hundreds of Washtenaw-Wayne County
community members “March for Our
Lives” in wake of Uvalde school shooting
Over 400 Washtenaw-Wayne county community members gathered in the Diag to
encourage law makers to take measures to end gun violence
Over 400 voices rang out in unison
over the Diag Saturday morning
with a message for state and U.S.
legislators alike: “stop the silence,
end gun violence.” Organized by
high school students from the Ann
Arbor and Plymouth-Canton areas,
the
Washtenaw-Wayne
County
March for Our Lives was one of over
450 local marches that happened
across the country on June 11.
The national call to action was
sparked in the wake of the May 24
shooting at Robb Elementary School
in Uvalde, Texas, which resulted
in the death of 19 students and two
teachers — just one of the more than
240 mass shootings so far in 2022.
Guns have been the leading cause
of death for U.S. children and teens
since 2020.
When the March for Our Lives
movement was initiated in 2018
following the shooting at Stoneman
Douglas High School in Parkland,
Fla., it was seen as a testament to the
efficacy of student activism. During
the movement’s first year, marches
all around the U.S. — including the
main protest in Washington, D.C. —
were organized primarily by middle
and high school students. Over 4,000
people attended the first student-
lead rally in Ann Arbor alone.
The return of the March for Our
Lives movement on Saturday was a
result of renewed student activism
calling for gun reform. Around six
local high school students who are
a part of the Washtenaw-Wayne
County chapter of March for Our
Lives orchestrated Saturday’s protest
on the University of Michigan’s Ann
Arbor campus, including Plymouth
High School rising senior Kavya
Keshavamurthy.
Keshavamurthy said she went on
a virtual call with leadership from
the national March for Our Lives
organization and chapter leaders
from all over the U.S. shortly after
the massacre in Uvalde. It was there,
she said, that March for Our Lives
announced its intent to once again
incite a wave of protests after four
years.
She and the rest of the Washtenaw-
Wayne chapter immediately began
organizing the march in Ann Arbor.
Keshavamurthy said she hopes
Michigan legislators in Lansing and
on Capitol Hill will hear the echoes
of their chants, will see the faces of
the protestors in the media and will
be moved to pass bills addressing
gun reform and mental health.
“The overarching goal of our
march is basically to send a message
to our legislators,” Keshavamurthy
said. “Our politicians can no longer
just get away with thoughts and
prayers. They need action.”
The Washtenaw-Wayne County
chapter of March for Our Lives is
currently co-lead by two recent Ann
Arbor Public Schools graduates:
RONI KANE
Daily News Editor
Rhiannon Hubbard, who graduated
this year from Pioneer High School,
and
Christine
Kang,
who
just
graduated from Skyline High School.
The pair stood before the crowd to
kickoff Saturday’s protest by listing off
the numbers 58%, three million and
one million: 58% for the majority of
Americans who have experienced, or
know someone who has experienced,
gun violence in their lifetime; three
million in regards to the number of
American children who witness gun
violence on an annual basis; and one
million for the number of women
alive today who have been shot at by
their partner.
They warned the crowd to not
let these statistics become mere
numbers or to accept them as facts,
but to fight to decrease the number of
lives affected by gun violence.
“We have seen so many acts of
gun violence that we allow these
numbers to remain numbers, but we
must never let that happen,” Kang
told the crowd. “There are friends,
families and communities behind
these numbers.”
In an interview with The Michigan
Daily, Hubbard and Kang highlighted
one final statistic, but this time it was
a number they felt encouraged by.
“I am so grateful and proud of
the over 400 people who showed up
today to march with us to end gun
violence,” Kang said. “I can’t even put
into words how powerful this all felt.”
Read more at michigandaily.com