Horry County is recognizing Juneteenth for the first time. Employees plan to celebrate.
Betty Gause appreciates Juneteenth for two reasons.
First, she likes celebrating the June 19th holiday with food and music as a way of recognizing Black American’s emancipation from slavery and sharing that history with her community and with the children she teaches at the James R. Frazier Community Center in Bucksport.
But second? It means she gets a day off.
“It means I’m gonna get some rest,” she said. “I’m serious because it’s been nonstop for me.”
Monday will be the first time in Horry County’s history that the county government recognizes Juneteenth and gives employees the day off. And some Black county employees said they’re looking forward to it.
“We should commemorate the emancipation of enslaved Americans,” Wanda Dyson, the office manager for the Horry County Public Defender, said. “We are actually proud of this becoming a holiday and it was in reference to slaves but we thank God for freedom for everyone.”
Ron Hazzard, the head of the Public Defender’s office, said he appreciated Horry County making the day a holiday.
“I think it was a nice recognition of a very pivotal moment in U.S. history,” he said.
President Joe Biden last year made Juneteenth the newest federal holiday, and Horry County followed suit in October. That came about after Gause, who’s hosted Juneteenth events in the past, spoke with county council member Orton Bellamy who then helped get the county to recognize the holiday for its employees.
The City of Myrtle Beach began recognizing Juneteenth as a holiday in 2020. The city’s first Juneteenth parade will be this weekend.
Bellamy, who just lost his re-election bid on Tuesday, said he was looking forward to holiday because it’s a way to connect with history, both is own and the broader history of African Americans.
“We’re a county of diversity and inclusion and I’m one for inclusion of history. The Bible says ‘you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free,’” Bellamy said. “African history is American history and it should be taught on a broad basis.”
In Bucksport, Gause said the James R. Frazier Community Center will host a Juneteenth celebration on Saturday, the 18th, with barbecue, music, speakers and games for kids. The event will have “a whole lot” she said.
Bellamy said he plans to attend that event as well as other Juneteenth events around the county. He said he appreciates the Southern food as well as the recognition of history.
Growing up, he said, he had “an opportunity to have conversations with them who were one generation removed from slavery.”
“It’s very important to know your history, not only your history but all of history,” he added. “We’re not perfect but we’re the greatest country in the world.”
A history lesson for everyone
Juneteenth specifically recognizes June 19, 1865 when 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas to inform the enslaved Black people there that they were freed by executive decree.
President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, but enslaved people in places controlled by the Confederate Army could not be freed. The final liberation of 250,000 enslaved people in Texas was the formal end of slavery.
Not everyone, though, knows that history. And some county employees, like Gause, said they had only recently begun learning about Juneteenth and what it means. Gause, who’s in her 50s, said she wasn’t taught any Black history until middle school and even then she learned more from her cousins who lived in New York.
She said it wasn’t until later in her life that her cousins in New York encouraged her to visit in June, rather than August, so they could all celebrate Juneteenth. As her kids grew up and went to college, she said, she learned even more.
“They heard about it in college but it wasn’t talked about as much, it was kind of hush hush,” she said.
But the more she learned, the more she wanted to recognize the holiday.
“That’s when I said to my county council member Orton Bellamy, ‘I think it’s time,’” Gause said.
Dyson said she learned more about Black history growing up but that she only started celebrating Juneteenth recently. She said she looks forward to the music, the food and seeing people she doesn’t get a chance to see regularly.
“It takes on a meaning for all Black people because of the slavery,” she said. “(My parents) instilled in us as children to go forth and get along with all people. So I focus on the fact that it’s a day of freedom.”
“We never celebrated that but they always taught us about what happened back in those days,” she added. “I am excited because it’s a time for us to come together as a people and as a nation.”
Bellamy said his family made history a big part of his upbringing and that he celebrates Juneteenth as a way to share that history and culture with others. He said he looks forward to the jazz and rhythm and blues music, as well as the sweet potato pie and barbecue.
“It’s...important to learn other cultures and respect other cultures. God created us all equal,” he said. “I found what works is universal: ‘Treat people the way you want to be treated.’”
