Local historians celebrate African American history and future in honor of Juneteenth

MCHENRY COUNTY – Governor JB Pritzker declared Juneteenth an official state holiday on June 16, recognizing it as National Freedom Day. In celebration of Juneteenth, Gloria Van Hof, McHenry County historian and lecturer of the Underground Railroad, and Patrick Murfin, McHenry County historian and social justice activist will be acknowledging how far America has come and what still needs to be done.

Juneteenth commemorates the day federal troops marched into Galveston, Texas to liberate African Americans who were still enslaved in 1865 after Lincoln issued the emancipation proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, Van Hof said. 

On June 15 the senate unanimously passed a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, according to NBC News. 

“[Juneteenth is] a time to become more educated about Black history because Black history is American history,” Van Hof said. 

While Juneteenth represents a breakthrough for the Black community and their ancestors, it is not a celebration of everyone finally being free and equal, “because we’re still fighting racism today,” Van Hof said. 

Van Hof said Juneteenth is an opportunity to to stand up, to ask for what African Americans deserve, and that is reparations. She said by taking Juneteenth to learn about the ways in which police maintained racism when slavery was prominent, and assisted the KKK, as well as the obstacles African Americans had to fight, it makes one become aware of systematic racism that continues today.

Murfin compares Juneteenth to Hanukkah for the Jewish community. After the Holocaust Hanukkah became a holiday of pride, and similarly, Juneteenth is a day of hope and triumph, Murfin said, as the fight to equity and equality continues.

“It’s a reminder that people can endure and prosper,” Murfin said.  

Van Hof said typically for Juneteenth she will give a lecture at a college, a womens’ group, chuches, or anywhere people will have her, but this year she will visit an underground railroad museum.

In her lectures Van Hof said she hopes listeners, especially in McHenry County, leave aware of how generous and courageous their ancestors were when helping runaway slaves. 

“I want them to feel that sense of pride,” Van Hof said. 

Van Hof encourages people to increase their knowledge of Black history in celebration of Juneteenth, wherever they may be. Educating yourself and soaking in history can be painful, Van Hof said, even for her, but it’s in society’s best interest to read, listen to videos, and watch movies about slavery. 

Van Hof said increasing our knowledge of each other will allow us to get along better as a society. 

Looking at the future for African Americans, there needs to be reparations, Van Hof said. She said there’s still work to do, and as the population changes, black and brown people will make up the majority of the population in a decade. 

Murfin said Martin Luther King Jr. once said in one of his speeches at the National Cathedral on March 31, 1968 that we shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice. Murfin said it only bends because humans bend it; there will only be progress because of continual human effort, he said. 

Facing a society where more needs to be done for the Black community, Murfin said he doesn’t want to see a color blind society, because that denies reality. 

“I want to see a nation in which all people, regardless of their race, or religion, or sexual orientation are treated with respect and dignity and have the opportunities to participate in society,” Murfin said.