As the country paused this past weekend to celebrate Juneteenth Day, a national event presented by the Robert Randolph Foundation and hosted by actress and singer Amanda Seales, trained a spotlight on some of the nation’s storied historically Black colleges and universities.
This year’s event took on special meaning after President Joe Biden signed legislation marking June 19th—the day in 1865 when slaves in Galveston, Texas learned that they had been freed—into a federal holiday.
“Growing up in New York City, I really had a vague notion of what Juneteenth was,” said Lynn Nottage, a writer and producer who was among dozens of entertainers who participated in the virtual livestream on Saturday. “It was a holiday that folks down South celebrated but it really wasn’t something that I came to understand until I was an adult.”
She added: “There was a large swath of us who were African-Americans who didn’t know what liberation was, who didn’t know what freedom was.”
The Black Lives Matter Movement, and the death of unarmed Black Americans including George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others, have heightened awareness about the holiday, coming just a few weeks after the nation paused to remember the victims of the deadly 1921 Tulsa race riots.
During the livestream, Rashad engaged in conversation with Mollie Stevens, whose family owned one of the oldest black family ranches in the United States.
“Then, there were the people who tried to encroach upon your land. How did your parents ward that off?” asked Rashad, who grew up in Houston, Texas.
