News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Cookeville-Putnam County NAACP will gather at West End Park in honor of Juneteenth tomorrow.
President Thomas Savage said they will gather for the 5th time from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Savage said while Juneteenth should be a platform to engage the black community in today’s issues.
“They will have voter registration, they will have conversation about healthcare in Tennessee, which is really not that great,” Savage said. “So it will be a time of enlightenment and celebration.”
Savage said there will be time for fun and the holiday fish fry is one of the most anticipated parts of Cookeville’s Juneteenth. However, he said there is still a need to emphasize the history beyond the holiday.
“On June 19th, in Galveston, Texas is when slaves got the news that they had been freed a good while… like two and a half years before they got the news,” Savage said. “Finally they got the message and they got to participate in freedom, in America.”
Savage said having Juneteenth as a federal holiday, truly gives equal representation of freedom and independence in the United States. He said Juneteenth is not about taking attention away from the 4th of July, but to give equal footing to liberty in the United States.
“I think if you consider 4th of July, people will be able to celebrate it and not have any sour grapes,” Savage said. “Juneteenth is talking about the Emancipation Proclamation and those that were left out and didn’t even know about it. There’s still a lot to be done that’s for sure but we’re on the road to progress. So we’re not where we want to be, but we’re not where we used to be.”
Savage said people will be gathering at the West End Park Community Center. He said this was the site of the Rosenwald School, which was the African-American High School during Jim Crow.
