Culture & Community | Juneteenth | Arts & Culture | New Haven Green | Arts & Anti-racism
Top: William Fluker, Liam Brennan, JCGNH member and Events Coordinator Iman Uqdah Hameen, International Festival of Arts & Ideas Executive Director Shelley Quiala, CHRO's Ana Mitchell, JCGNH Founder Hanan Hameen-Diop and Ali Jabbar. Bottom: The flag. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Musician William Fluker lifted a well-loved flugelhorn to his lips, and a brassy take on “What A Wonderful World” began to float across the New Haven Green. On a bench nearby, two women stopped what they were doing to look up, and swayed gently to the sound. In front of them, Ben Haith’s Juneteenth Flag started its steady climb toward the clouds.
Monday afternoon, members of the Official Juneteenth Coalition of Greater New Haven (JCGNH) gathered for a celebratory flag raising and announcement of upcoming Juneteenth events, from a new youth march and weekend-long market to an annual hip hop conference at Neighborhood Music School. This year is particularly meaningful: it marks the JCGNH’s 10th anniversary in New Haven, and the second that a flag has flown on the Green.
This year, the coalition’s theme is “Voices of Freedom,” which builds on the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation’s “Wave Of Freedom” and the International Festival of Arts & Ideas' theme "R.I.S.E." The flag will remain on the New Haven Green through July 5, knitting together two American stories of freedom that are sometimes at odds with each other. In an email Tuesday morning, JCGNH member and Events Coordinator Iman Uqdah Hameen called it the “common bond of freedom.”
“For me, I want to celebrate,” said Artsucation Academy Network Founder and JCGNH Co-Founder Hanan Hameen-Diop, who has served on the coalition since its founding a decade ago. “I think too often, when it comes to holidays or events that deal with the Black community, African American or Afro-Diasporic community, everything has to be so solemn and sad, and we have to be mourning or protesting something. That’s not who we are as a people. This is a festive occasion.”
Musician William Fluker, who played as Public Works employee Sean O'Grady raised the flag. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Juneteenth recognizes the emancipation of enslaved Black people in Galveston, Tex. on June 19, 1865, marking the formal end of chattel slavery in the United States. It did not mark the end of the economic enslavement and disenfranchisement of Black Americans, which continues today. In June 2021, President Joe Biden signed it into law as a federally recognized national holiday. Last year, Gov. Ned Lamont followed suit.
Monday, a short lineup of speakers both fêted the blue, red, and white Juneteenth flag and a series of events that will stretch from Long Wharf to Dixwell Avenue to the Green in the coming weeks. Between verses of “Lift Every Voice and Sing” and the mellifluous flag raising itself, many of stressed the need to spread the message of liberation at a time when Juneteenth is both more widely recognized, and Black history is under attack across the country.
A significant part of that work is education. Kicking off the event, JCGNH member, writer, and artist Iman Uqdah Hameen pointed to the importance of passing the history of the day on to younger generations. While chattel slavery may have ended in 1865, she said, that did not mean an end to slavery as Americans understand it.
Iman Uqdah Hameen and her daughter, Dr. Hanan Hameen-Diop. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Her voice steady, she traced a line from slavery to the introduction of Black Codes, Jim Crow era policies, exploitative sharecropping practices, and the inclusion of punishment for crime in the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Today, those impacts still echo in New Haven, where the scars of redlining and urban renewal criss-cross the city.
As she spoke, her husband jazz musician Jesse Hameen recorded the remarks, beaming at the reminder to teach the past while also celebrating the present.
“The primary focus of the National Juneteenth movement is education,” she said. “That calls for research, connecting the dots, and a fuller understanding of the vast history of the formerly enslaved people of African descent, which is rich and endless.”
“I have seen history unfold,” she added in an interview with the Arts Paper at the event. “I’m 70 years old. I’ve seen movements unfold. Like reparations—who would ever think that ‘reparations’ would become a household word? So it feels as it should. It feels as it should.”
Top: Public Works employee Sean O'Grady prepares to raise the flag. Bottom: Mayor Justin Elicker and CHRO Outreach Coordinator Ana Mitchell. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Mayor Justin Elicker noted the significance of raising the flag on the New Haven Green, a focal point in the city that is a “crossroads for all the different neighborhoods.”
In past decades, the Green has become a meeting place for marches, community vigils, thousands-strong rallies, well-oiled community festivals and grassroots celebrations alike. In its long history, it has also been a place of extreme trauma: it sits on unceded Quinnipiac and Wappinger land, and was until 1825 a site where enslaved Black were sold people as property.
“I’m grateful for your work here… to underscore that while legally slavery is over, the impacts of slavery tragically live on,” Elicker said as buses lumbered by on all sides of the space, ferrying people across the city. “We face so many challenges around housing, around opportunities for jobs, around equal opportunity towards an education. And today is a moment for us to reflect both on how far we’ve come, but [also] on how much work lies ahead of us.”
This year, the coalition’s 10th anniversary also marks a year of firsts. As in years past, the group is collaborating with the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Kidz Kook, Ice The Beef, S.P.O.R.T Academy, the city’s Department of Arts, Culture & Tourism and other longtime community partners. For the first time in its history, it is also working with the Connecticut Commission of Human Rights and Opportunities (CHRO) to organize a youth march from Stetson Library to the New Haven Green.
Iman Uqdah Hameen, Ali Jabbar and Mayor Justin Elicker. Lucy Gellman Photos.
That march will unfold on Saturday June 17, starting at 10 a.m. Monday, CHRO Outreach Coordinator Ana Mitchell said the commission is thrilled to join as a partner and expand its social justice footprint in New Haven. In her day-to-day work, she spends most of her time teaching Hispanic and Latino Connecticut residents, particularly immigrants, about their rights as a protected class.
She said she was grateful to learn more about the history and legacy of Juneteenth from Uqdah Hameen and Hameen-Diop. Now, she said, she has knowledge that she can share with others in her orbit.
“I think it’s great!” she said, adding that CHRO is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. “This is the first time that the state of Connecticut is recognizing Juneteenth—that the state workers will be celebrating it with a day off. I think it’s essential for us to continue to teach and do another event.”
Following Monday’s flag raising, the coalition’s celebrations will continue on June 10 at 10 a.m., with a “Walk To The Water” at Long Wharf, honoring those who lost their lives during the Middle Passage and to the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. On Friday June 16 at 6 p.m., there will be a Juneteenth meet and greet at Stetson Library, followed by a youth march and day-long downtown “Voice of Freedom Festival” on the 17th.
Both Saturday and Sunday will also feature a marketplace on the New Haven Green, with Black vendors and organizations from around the city and the state. Sunday evening, the coalition returns with its signature elder honoring ceremony, which in the past has recognized community champions from the late Ms. Jeffie Frazier to Ms. Emma Jones to Black Panther George Edwards. Then on June 19th from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., festivities will culminate in the sixth annual New Haven Hip Conference at Neighborhood Music School.
“It feels a little surreal,” Hameen-Diop said. “When we first started, we didn’t set out to do it for this many years. We just started, and we were in one tent on the Green. To see it 10 years later, we’ve expanded to almost like a month-long of activities and our own mini festival—it’s just gratitude.”
"We also introduce and share information with you so that we can all learn together and grow together," Uqdah Hameen added.
For more from the flag raising ceremony, including music from William Fluker, click on the video above.