Great program this meeting from Dr. Kalenda Eaton, Assoc. Prof at OU, historian, about the Juneteenth Emancipation Celebration. 
 
Click on the headline above for more details and many photos!
 
To watch the entire meeting, click on this YouTube link: Sooner Club Secretary
 
 
 
 
 
Jane called our May 26 online meeting to order. 
 
43 participants attended our online club meeting!
 
Several people had questions about when we're going to meet in person again. Jane said it is on the June 12 Board agenda for discussion and appreciates all ideas. The Trails is working through how to serve breakfast and determining how many people they can have onsite and still meet social distancing guidelines. More to come!
 
We had lots of Happy Dollars--Sandra Longcrier's 41st wedding anniversary today; Jack Beller's 12th grandchild born; Polly Christian's 9-year-old grandson is home from the hospital; Jonna Buck and hubby closed the deal on a new home; Michael Ridgeway's kids (all except one) are in town, including Harrison his Tanzanian son who joined us for the meeting, and Jane Davies Purcell and husband who had their offer accepted to purchase a new home!  
 
We celebrated two months of birthdays!
April: Jane Davies Purcell, John Richardson, Cliff Thomas, Hayden Welch, John Cate, Kelly Nemecek, Lewis Beckett, Tonny Walden and April Heiple. 
Drawing winners: Hal Smith Restaurant $25 gift card--Cliff Thomas and Hayden Welch the $100 donation to RI Foundation. 
 
May: Judy Simpkins, Farrokh Moinian, Ellen Usry, Noah Milligan, Scott Mullins and Gale Hobson. 
Drawing winners: Hal Smith Restaurant $25 gift card--Scott Mullins and Judy Simpkins the $100 donation to RI Foundation. 

Our Program--

Our club meeting speaker this week was Dr. Kalenda Eaton, OU Assoc Professor, historian. She provided great info about the Juneteenth Emancipation Celebration on June 19 that originated in Texas in 1865 with the visit of Union Army General Granger to Houston.
 
     
 
     
 
     
 
               
 
Dr. Eaton said many were in Texas because their owners moved there from Confederate states in the South to maintain the status quo on property ownership and enslavement. Provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation that became law in 1863 only applied to states who declared themselves seceded from the Union, and Texas was not in that group.
 
Since The Civil War had ended, General Granger informed the state that slaves there and everywhere in the nation should be freed and considered as employees. He also advised African Americans to stay put, but many of the 250,000 in Texas celebrated their free status and "scattered" to find long-lost family members or to move to the states in the North. General Orders No. 3 was met with fierce violence, terrorism, death, and burning of property by those who supported slavery. Black Codes and Jim Crow laws after Reconstruction pushed Juneteenth celebrations underground until a resurgence in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement. 
 
As with all history, there is a great deal of context around the Juneteenth emancipation celebration that Dr. Eaton tried to pack into the 25-minute presentation. Here are some slides about the observance since the 1960s, including in Oklahoma the third state to declare Juneteenth a state holiday. She also told us about the emancipation celebration by descendants of the Negro Masgogo people in northern Mexico where some slaves settled after escaping from the US. 
 
     
 
     
 
The Juneteenth Emancipation flag has the same colors as the state of Texas flag, but it also has the outline around the star to represent the radiation of freedom for African Americans that originated in Texas with General Granger's visit. We also learned there is a Juneteenth national holiday designation legislation pending in the US House today. 
 
To learn more about this chapter in our American history check out the links below.
 
Here are some online resources for quick reference:
 
 
 
According to Dr. Eaton, these range from “official” pages, to an all-ages book list, to a YouTube lecture about Texas.
 
For educators and parents, she advises there are numerous children’s books on Juneteenth. Typing in the term on “Amazon.com,” for example, brings up mostly children’s reading material and picture books.