Gainesville began its “Journey to Juneteenth” event series on Tuesday with a flag-raising ceremony, marking the first event in a month-long program celebrating Black history.
The ceremony took place on the anniversary of Florida's emancipation date, May 20, 1865, when Union Brig. Gen. Edward McCook read the Emancipation Proclamation two years after its signing. The proclamation had no immediate impact on Florida until the Union officially won the Civil War.
Freedom wasn’t immediately granted to Black Americans as Florida and other southern states resisted liberation.
Cheers echoed throughout the City Hall Plaza after the St. Barbara’s Leadership Institute Choir sang “Lift Every Voice & Sing” at the beginning of the event.
Vivian Filer, an 86-year-old Gainesville resident and chair of the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, said the choir song was written as the Black national anthem.
“Lift Every Voice & Sing” was originally a poem by NAACP leader James Weldon Johnson in 1900. It was first publicly performed as a song by a choir of schoolchildren in Jacksonville, Florida the same year. Its religious allusions and vision of liberty led it to become a rallying cry during the Civil Rights Movement.
Reflecting on her childhood experiences, Filer said Black history was taught less once schools integrated and books in schools were replaced.
Florida officially desegregated its schools in the fall of 1970, while Gainesville began integrating in 1969.
Filer said she’s proud Black history is celebrated more in Gainesville. She gets calls from neighboring cities applauding what Gainesville has done and looking to emulate it, she said.
As communities struggle with modern-day division, it’s important to keep local history alive and continue to teach it, she said.
“You can’t do that unless you’re all going back from which you came, because we’re all on this ground, because we came from somewhere else,” Filer said.
Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward said Juneteenth events are personally important to him. Although he’s proud of having this month, local history should be something that’s talked about frequently, he said.
“If we don’t tell this, if we don’t own it, if we don’t tell the honest truth about what happened in the past, we will repeat it,” Ward said.
After the speakers finished, students from the Caring & Sharing Learning School raised a flag honoring Juneteenth outside Gainesville City Hall.
The red, white and blue flag features a star in the center, representing Texas. The bottom features the date when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were informed of their freedom: June 19, 1865.
Gainesville Equal Opportunity Director Zeriah Folston said Tuesday’s celebration was for everybody. Civil rights progress couldn’t have been made without multiple communities advocating for change, Folston said.
“We’re better together than we are apart,” Folston said. “We are always going to do better if we stay unified.”
Juneteenth events will continue through June 19. Gainesville’s next emancipation celebration event will take place at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Cotton Club Museum and Cultural Center, where there will be activities, performances and presentations.
Contact Logan McBride at lmcbride@alligator.org. Follow him on X @LoganDMcBride.
Logan McBride is a journalism junior and the Summer 2025 city commission reporter. In his free time, he enjoys watching TV shows or playing basketball at Southwest Rec. He is also a big football fan and will die for Dak Prescott.
