Lawmakers, community reflect on Juneteenth
ALBANY, N.Y. (WTEN) -- On this Juneteenth we celebrate the freedom enslaved people were granted in 1865 after hundreds of years of slavery. Our Capitol Correspondent Amal Tlaige spoke with lawmakers and community members who told their story of what this day means to them.
"We should be coming together, and thinking of, and reflecting on our history and what we have been able to overcome collectively I would argue through the power of love," said Lieutenant Governor Antonio Delgado who visited the Catskills on Monday. He, along with lawmakers and community members celebrated Juneteenth and unveiled the renaming of "W Main Street" to "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way." Delgado explained how he felt when that unveiling happened, "I felt a lot of hope, you know? Very inspired. It was the kind of experience that you know can move you, and it certainly moved me to think about what’s possible and what’s been overcome."
Pastor Shanell Turpin said Juneteenth is freedom day. "We know that when our country was free, all black people were not free. So this is a day for us to celebrate our freedom. We know the black people have a very large sense of community, so it’s a time for all of us to come together, and to celebrate all of us being able to be free.
"I think it’s another important day in this country’s history, it reminds us, where this country came from and you know where we still have to go," said Speaker, Carl Heastie. He said one area where black people still reap the consequences of slavery, is in lack of generational wealth where he said they’re still playing catch up today. "Because we didn’t have the opportunity to own land and things like that until after slavery and then after that, not many people had that opportunity even then."
But the Speaker is proud of all that African Americans have accomplished to date including those in state government. "The fact that you have the Attorney General, two legislative leaders, the black mayor of the city of New York, mayor of Buffalo, mayor of Rochester, so black people are getting into positions of authority, we’re getting into the board rooms," he explained. And recently the state passed a bill to form a commission to study the effects of slavery on African Americans in New York today.