GREENEVILLE – Speakers highlighted the importance of freedom and love and the value of experiencing someone different as they commemorated Juneteenth during an event at Tusculum University.
Left to right are speakers Rayford G. Johnson, Joaquin Graham, Tiffany Eskridge Bell and Chuck Sutton.
Juneteenth marks the end of slavery in the United States on June 19, 1865, 2 ½ years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The final slaves were freed in Texas at the direction of Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, but the speakers Wednesday, June 18, noted that was not the end of the story.
“For years people worked and labored for a freedom that was already theirs,” said Tiffany Eskridge Bell, community outreach coordinator for the Roane County NAACP and the Greenwood School Education Foundation. “That’s why Juneteenth is more than just a date. It is a lesson of how silence often shields injustice. It is a reminder of the words of the civil rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer hold truth: Nobody is free until we’re all free. Juneteenth is a celebration of the day that truth finally caught up to the promise. Freedom isn’t just a moment. It’s a movement.”
In addition to Bell, the event in the Dr. Nancy B. Moody Lecture Hall of the Meen Center featured the following speakers:
- Rayford G. Johnson, a pastor and an accomplished academic and business professional with more than two decades of experience in entrepreneurship, innovation leadership and health care management
- Chuck Sutton, vice president of student affairs and retention at the university
- Joaquin Graham, a Tusculum student-athlete
Bell described freedom as the ability:
- To live one’s life without fear
- To speak one’s life without punishment
- To learn without barriers
- To enter a place and not be judged based on one’s looks or origin
- To have access to opportunity, protection and deity
“When we look at the state of the world today, I believe we can all agree that we’ve come a long way,” Bell said. “But we still have a long way to go. Today, people are still facing injustice based on the way that they look. We still see gaps in education, income, health and justice. We still see hashtags, the names we’re left to mourn because freedom wasn’t enough to save them. So, no, we’re not done yet. Juneteenth wasn’t the finish line.”
Tusculum student Joaquin Graham speaks.
Tiffany Eskridge Bell provides her perspective.
Graham said Black history is American history and should be taught in the classroom.
“That’s why Juneteenth is very big, and that’s why we have Black History Month in February,” he said. “It helps all students understand freedom, the struggle and resilience that Black people have. It teaches how racism was built and how it was fought and how it has been challenged to this day. Not only that, it builds pride for Black students and empathy for other students.”
Along with Sutton and Johnson, Graham is a member of the fraternity Omega Psi Phi. Graham said the fraternity is active in local communities across the nation, including in East Tennessee. He said the fraternity emphasizes that education is a tool for liberation and has created scholarships for youth.
Sutton noted that not everyone is the same and said that is good. When he was growing up in Jacksonville, Florida, he said people looked and acted like him wherever he went. But then he attended East Tennessee State University and discovered there are differences in people, and that resulted in his learning more about himself.
“Doing things differently from someone else is not wrong,” Sutton said. “Approaching things differently provides an opportunity to learn. Being different is a holistic approach to growth. Once you see someone that is not like you, you want to take that opportunity to be uncomfortable because that will enable you to grow. You need to be around someone who is not like you because you find out who you are and what you’re about. When you learn something from someone who is of a different race or different group, you want to meditate on it. And if you have questions, you ask that person about their culture.”
Johnson is originally from North Carolina but came to East Tennessee because he felt God wanted him there. It was a change for him because he had been raised in a predominantly Black residential area but did not see as many of that race when he came to Tennessee. He said he encountered some challenging times when he came to the region because of his race.
Rayford G. Johnson shares his thoughts.
“Race does matter,” Johnson said. “It matters where you come from. It matters what you look like because it’s you. It matters what you think about others and what others think about you. But really what determines your success in life is you learning who your genuine and authentic self really is. And quite often, you can’t understand that until your idea of who you are has been challenged.”
Johnson asked how people react when things do not go as they would like or are out of their control. He said people need to grow through understanding.
“As people who believe in God, we are called to love others,” Johnson said. “The way that we walk forward as people is that we must love. We must be honest enough to tell the truth and tell that truth in love. I cannot pastor and love and shepherd and care for people if I hate them. Be someone who is determined to walk the walk of love. Learn to judge people by the interior of their heart, not by what they look like and you will go far. Love is limitless. Hate is a killer.”
More information about the university is available at www.tusculum.edu.