Chip Minemyer: A time to embrace 'community'

Chip Minemyer, The Tribune-Democrat, Johnstown, Pa.
·3 min read

May 26—We generally think of "community" as the place we live, that shared space where people have both geographic and cultural connectivity.

The city. The neighborhood.

The business district.

The campus.

Toby Lowe, a visiting professor in public management with the Centre for Public Impact, wrote recently that a community provides a "sense of identity and belonging" — a nearness that can be both physical and philosophical.

"Community" — from the Latin word "communitas," meaning common — gives us these concepts:

—Community service: Working for the benefit of others.

—Community center: A gathering place for people with similar goals and interests.

—Community chest: A collection of financial assets gathered for the purpose of elevating local people and projects.

—Community college: A learning institution affordable and accessible for much of the local population.

—Community development: The process of planning and building safer and more productive towns and regions — improving the quality of life.

Those are all very worthwhile notions that can elevate and unite a region.

But Lowe and others remind us that "community" means more than a place or even a group of individuals.

"The word 'community' has a strange power to it," Lowe wrote. "It conveys a sense of togetherness and positivity."

Togetherness and positivity sometimes seem to be in short supply, as factions work to divide us, amplifying our challenges and painting our differences as hurdles rather than building blocks.

But our community is a diverse mix of ethnicities, experiences, beliefs and ambitions that should work as a system to move us forward, not hold us back.

June is just one of 12 pages on the calendar, but the new month will provide numerous opportunities for us to embrace our many features and tighten the fabric of our "community" tapestry.

June 19 is "Juneteenth" — a national holiday established to remember and celebrate the abolishment of slavery in the United States.

Although President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, it wasn't until January 1865 that Congress had adopted the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution — making "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" legal.

And it took until June 1865 for that new status to reach every corner of the nation. On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, announcing that "more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree." That date became "Juneteenth" in Texas, and the tradition slowly spread across the country.

Johnstown will celebrate Juneteenth from June 12-19, including a day of music June 17 at Peoples Natural Gas Park and a week full of entertainment, food, activities and discussions centered on the issue of race relations at Central Park.

The celebration is being organized by the Johnstown Chapter of the NAACP and Flood City Youth Fitness Academy.

The Laurel Highlands Pride Festival on June 3 will feature a parade at 11 a.m. in downtown Johnstown and then music and vendors until 8 p.m. in Central Park. The event is being organized by the Laurel Highlands GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance).

The group's mission is "to build and maintain a healthy LGBTQ+ community that promotes a positive image through visibility, education and community involvement."

In addition to supporting these important moments, we should also come together to fight the scourge of antisemitism, which has been on the rise across the nation and around the world.

The Anti-Defamation League said "the number of antisemitic incidents in the U.S. increased by more than 35% in the past year," according to an Associated Press report, while "antisemitic and white supremacist propaganda in the U.S. also hit new levels."

Hate and prejudice are the enemies of "community" — causing division and animosity that would tear us apart.

Anthropologists say the word "communitas" ultimately refers to "an experience of intense shared humanity that transcends social structure."

Let's find that place — that true "community" of unity — and move forward together.

Chip Minemyer is the publisher of The Tribune-Democrat and Johnstown Magazine. He can be reached at 814-532-5111. Follow him on Twitter @MinemyerChip.