About 30 people gathered in the chapel of the First Presbyterian Church of Cooperstown Wednesday, June 19, to celebrate Juneteenth.
“I just want to let you folks know that you’re sitting in the space occupied by Susan B. Anthony in February of 1855,” Tom Heitz, the church’s historian, said. “As she explained her ideas about slavery and ideas about women.”
The church also is home to another historical event, Heitz said. It is where some freed slaves in New York celebrated their emancipation on July 4, 1827.
Area white residents were concerned something was going to happen during the celebration, so the militia from Union College marched from Schenectady to Cooperstown to observe the celebration. After nothing happened, the militia marched back to Schenectady. There is no record as to who attended the celebration, however, one former slave who probably attended was Betsy Stockton, who is buried in Cooperstown, he said.
Cooperstown Village Historian Will Walker said New York depended on slavery for its economic growth, just like the southern states did.
Juneteenth celebrates the day when slaves in Galveston, Texas were told they were free June 19, 1865, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation Jan. 1, 1863, freeing all the slaves in confederate states, the Rev. Mike Coles, pastor of the Cooperstown Baptist Church, said.
Later in the ceremony Coles said he and his family grew up in Westchester, Pennsylvania. They were poor and a local church helped them and he joined the church. One Sunday, his grandfather drove from New Jersey to the church. He said the lord told him that he needed to be there. During the service, his grandfather said when he was younger he was not allowed to step foot into the church, but there he was sitting next to his grandson.
“I am here to talk about today,” Sheena Mason, assistant professor of English at SUNY Oneonta, said. “What we do today often dictates what the future is going to look like. As a child, I experienced explicit racism. It led me to an undergraduate at SUNY Plattsburgh thinking very deeply about what is this thing called racism.”
Mason said she has been thinking about what is race and what is racism, “and more importantly, how can we end it,” for the last 20 years. She said even though scientists have debunked different races as a biological feature, it is still taught that way it is in schools.
“If we deconstruct that concept of race and our practice of assigning races to the singular human species, then perhaps, we can start to get somewhere,” she said. She tells her students this and they respond, “that’s great, but it’s impossible,” she said. “We are so engrained at every turn in this thing called race and in the practice of assigning races.” In the history of the world assigning race is pretty young.
Mason has written books and hosts a podcast. She encouraged people in the audience to visit her website togethernesswayfinder.org.
In addition to the guest speakers, the Rev. LaDana Clark, from ChurchNtheHood in Oneonta led the opening and closing prayer. King Konye performed a spoken word about his experiences. Amanda Sheriff sang the spiritual “Hold On/Keep Your Eyes on the Prize” and Katie Boardman sang “We are Marching (Siyahamba).” Sheriff is performing in “La Calisto” at Glimmerglass Opera this summer.
