Emancipation Day: 150 attend celebration as Gifford commemorates slavery's end in Florida
GIFFORD — Gifford’s second annual celebration of the state’s Emancipation Day — when enslaved Floridians were freed more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 — drew about 150 people Saturday, including a 103-year-old resident.
The event hosted by the Gifford Community Cultural and Resource Center included an invocation, a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation and singing of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” also known as “The Black National Anthem.” The event marks the 158th anniversary of when more than 150,000 people were liberated in 1865, after Union Gen. Ed McCook read the proclamation in Tallahassee while receiving the surrender of Confederate troops.
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Lenora Williams, the 103-year-old Gifford resident and guest of honor, was recognized for sharing her great-grandmother’s story of walking 26 miles with other enslaved Black people from Monticello, Florida, to Tallahassee to celebrate the news of their freedom on that day.
“It’s important that we learn this history, know this history and share this history. And that’s one of the things our honoree, Ms. Lenora Williams, had done all her life,” said Jonnie Mae Perry, CEO of the cultural and resource center.
Some attendees walked a 4K, or about 2.5 miles, along the Martin Luther King Jr. Walking Trail and Park before the main event — with soul food, live music and vendor booths — in honor of Williams’ great-grandmother.
“People are too nice to me,” Williams said. “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy. I want to thank you for all you’re doing.”
The celebration was held on the grounds of the Gifford Historical Museum and Cultural Center. Attendees enjoyed sunny weather as they visited food vendors, danced to music and navigated floating bubbles from a bubble maker. which added a playful touch to a serious but joyful commemoration.
The Gifford Youth Achievement Center, the Learning Alliance and the Visiting Nurse Association, which brought its mobile health clinic, were among the organizations at the event.
Cherie White, who traveled from Port St. Lucie to attend, said events like this one empower children by showing them the support they have from the community, she said.
“An event like this will show our youth that there’s more to life than violence and more to life than feeling alone and feeling like no one hears you,” White, 48, said. “When you come to these events, you’re getting the encouragement and the love and the support to be the best you.”
Perry emphasized Emancipation Day as being separate from Juneteenth, when people enslaved in Texas were the last to be freed among the Confederate states.
“We support Juneteenth. We celebrate Juneteenth. But Juneteenth is when the last of the enslaved became free on June 19th. Florida’s enslaved were about a month ahead,” Perry said.
“We as a community can always set the example to unify, to come together and learn about each other’s cultural differences and learn to respect each other. It just makes for a more inclusive Indian River County,” she added.
Lina Ruiz is TCPalm's watchdog reporter for Martin County. You can reach her at lina.ruiz@tcpalm.com, on Twitter @Lina_Ruiz48 or at 321-501-3845.
This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Emancipation Day: Annual Gifford event in Indian River highlights history
