Iberville Parish will host its second-ever Juneteenth Celebration to pay tribute to Black American history, commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in 1865 and promote freedom for their descendants.
“I think the parish doing it is a wonderful thing and signal for unity in the parish itself,” said Rev. Clyde McNell Sr., who will be formally honored during the event.
The federal holiday marks the historic moment in June 1865 when Union troops arrived in Texas, the westernmost state to secede from United States and join the Confederacy, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free over 250,000 enslaved Black Americans.
The celebration is also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day and Independence Day.
“We never forget the history,” McNell said. “We keep that in mind, but we celebrate more.”
The program will begin at 2 p.m. June 19 at the Carl F. Grant Civic Center in Plaquemine. Doors open at 1 p.m.
Iberville celebrated the holiday for the first time in 2024 when parish President Chris Daigle, then in his first year in office, “saw an opportunity to highlight and bring to the forefront the importance of the Juneteenth Holiday and begin honoring our residents of Iberville Parish,” parish Chief Administrative Officer Dwayne Boudreaux wrote in an email to The Advocate.
The event will honor four contributors to the spirit of freedom in Iberville Parish: McNell, 18th Judicial District Judge Alvin Batiste Jr., former East Iberville High School Principal Melvin Craige and longtime community volunteer Veronica Hill. They will represent, respectively, freedom through religion, freedom through justice, freedom through education and freedom through community.
Pastor Clyde McNell Sr. is a pastor at three churches in Iberville Parish.
McNell is a pastor at New Light Baptist Church, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church and St. Peter Baptist Church in Iberville. He is also the president of the Iberville Parish Ministers Conference. To him, freedom through religion encapsulates the faith that many enslaved people drew strength from and organized around, he said.
“I think about how they hung on to that faith to get through the enslavement, through the struggle, through the fight to still be free after literally being set free,” McNell said. “It took faith. It took stories from the Bible, from Exodus, Moses delivering the children of Israel out of Egypt. We’re seeing others who were Moses of this day and time, the Harriet Tubman, the Frederick Douglass, the Sojourner Truth.”
Iberville’s event will conclude with local music performances.
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