Black historians find ways to celebrate Juneteenth amid Tennessee crackdowns on DEI

Yahoo

19-06-2025

A ribbon commemorating Juneteenth drapes a historic marker in one of Knoxville's several cemeteries where enslaved people are buried. (Photo: Angela Dennis)
As cities across Tennessee prepare for Juneteenth celebrations with banners unfurling, vendors setting up, and leaders finalizing programs honoring Black liberation, a deeper question lingers: What does it mean to celebrate freedom in a state restricting how that freedom's history is taught?
In Tennessee, state lawmakers have gutted DEI programs, banned books by Black authors, and restricted how teachers can talk about race and history in the classroom.
This year's celebrations have also come with cutbacks. Across the country, Juneteenth events have been scaled back due to shrinking DEI funding, canceled federal grants and retreat from corporate support for racial justice initiatives.
For many Black educators, organizers, and students, the policies feel like a modern day echo of the delayed freedom Juneteenth was created to mark. It represents a continued struggle for true freedom and liberation.
Republican supermajority passes bills to 'dismantle' DEI in state, local government
'The attacks on our history, on information, professors, universities and on teachers, are horrifying,' said Tennessee State Rep. Justin Pearson. 'One of the first tools of oppression is to deny the education of people. In this moment in Tennessee and across the country, we are seeing policies and practices that are very harmful to our society's memory about how we have gotten to where we are.'
On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been free for more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. That delay in freedom highlights, for many, the same struggle seen today as laws and policies seek to suppress the teaching of Black history and limit the freedom of education.
What began as a regional celebration has grown into a national symbol of Black freedom, with Juneteenth becoming a federal holiday in 2021, signed into law by President Joe Biden. Gov. Bill Lee signed a law recognizing Juneteenth as a state holiday in 2023.
'Recognizing Juneteenth as a state holiday, while passing laws that harm Black communities, reveals deep hypocrisy,' said Pearson. 'We're still trapped by systems, academically, environmentally, politically, and civically, despite being technically free.'
For other community leaders, the recognition of Juneteenth as a federal holiday is significant but raises important questions about the intent and timing of such a move.
Chris Woodhull, a longtime civic leader in East Tennessee, reflected on how he and others were teaching the significance of Juneteenth decades ago, long before it gained national visibility.
'Back in the '90s, I was teaching about Juneteenth with young people through our organization called Tribe One,' Woodhull said. 'We were talking about emancipation and the legacy of slavery before it was popular.'
When Juneteenth was made a federal holiday in 2021, Woodhull couldn't help but notice the timing after the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer — and subsequent uprisings —and growing momentum behind the movement to defund the police.
'Juneteenth became a federal holiday not in a vacuum but in the wake of George Floyd's death, when people were in the streets demanding justice, systemic change, and real transformation,' he said.
While he appreciates the symbolism of the recognition, Woodhull said it felt, in part, like a concession, a gesture meant to appease, rather than challenge systems of power. Still, Woodhull believes Juneteenth holds real significance, especially when it's rooted in truth and history.
'There are a lot of well-meaning people who want to celebrate Juneteenth but don't really understand what it means,' he said. 'We can't afford for it to become just another day off. The challenge is to make sure we're not just marking the day but honoring the story, and the struggle behind it.'
In recent years, Tennessee lawmakers have passed sweeping legislation targeting the teaching of race, diversity and Black history. In 2021, the state passed a law banning divisive concepts in public education, followed by restrictions in 2022 on mandatory DEI training in higher education. These measures were followed by further legislation in 2025 aimed at dismantling DEI programs across the state.
Book bans and curriculum restrictions have also spread across Tennessee. In January 2022, McMinn County removed the Pulitzer-winning graphic novel Maus from its eighth-grade curriculum.
That same year, Hamilton County established a review board to evaluate books for 'offensiveness,' leading to the removal of titles with Black and LGBTQ+ voices. In Knoxville, 113 books, including Push by Black author Sapphire, were pulled from schools. Wilson County removed nearly 400 books, including works by Toni Morrison, while Nashville's public libraries responded by promoting banned books during Banned Books Week. In Chattanooga, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas was also removed.
Despite political efforts to restrict classroom content, educators across Tennessee are finding ways to teach Juneteenth and center Black freedom.
'Juneteenth has always been a topic I discussed in my classes,' said Dr. Learotha Williams, associate professor of African American and Public History at Tennessee State University and director of the North Nashville Heritage Project. 'It's one of those celebrations that has persisted.'
Williams believes Black history must extend beyond traditional classrooms. His courses split time between lectures and community exploration, including visits to historic sites. At Hadley Park Community Center in Nashville, he also led a community course on Black Nashville, taking community members to former enslaved markets and lynching sites. He draws that inspiration from Carter G. Woodson — the author and historian known as the 'Father of Black History' — who urged scholars to consider whether their work uplifts or alienates the communities they study.
'That was one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I've ever had,' he said. 'It involved students and many elders in the community engaging directly with their city's history.'
In Knoxville, Dr. Melody Hawkins, a nationally recognized and award-winning educator, sees Juneteenth as an opportunity for reflection and liberation in classrooms, despite growing restrictions on educators like herself
'Whenever people hear about all the banned books, there's this assumption that it means we can't still do the work,' she said. 'But you can still be affirming. We just call it being good teachers.'
She believes the focus should be less about restricted terminology and more about how educators show up for their students.
'Juneteenth teaches us about our history and also helps us build classrooms where Black students feel safe, valued, and free to thrive,' she said.
Her upcoming book, Black Girl in the Middle, explores how race and gender bias shape education for Black girls, particularly in middle school. While educators didn't create the systems that marginalize students, Hawkins says, 'we're still responsible for how we respond to them.'
In East Tennessee, Black in Appalachia, an educational organization, preserves and amplifies Black history and community stories in the region, especially in rural areas where much of the history is whitewashed. Director William Isom sees the current climate as part of a larger historical pattern of erasure.
'From my perspective, none of this is new. This repression is just a continuation of our history,' he said.
Isom points to Reconstruction as a parallel.
Juneteenth strengthens the whole idea of the American narrative and any effort to erase the difference in perspectives around this significant day.
– Adam Dickson, Langston Centre
'If local archives and historical societies looked closely at how their communities were shaped by Reconstruction, and its dismantling, they'd see the throughline.'
His advice is to focus on community record-keeping.
'Everyday people creating their own records, sharing their family stories, can be more powerful than anything an organization can do.'
Adam Dickson, Cultural Director of the Langston Centre in Johnson City, runs a monthly public series called Community History 365. He believes the burden of preserving and teaching Black history now rests heavily on local communities.
'Juneteenth strengthens the whole idea of the American narrative and any effort to erase the difference in perspectives around this significant day,' Dickson said.'For so long, the Black perspective around Juneteenth had been ignored. That's why it's such a pivotal moment and never really considered as it should have been so it was a pivotal moment.'
For Pearson, embracing Juneteenth is also about Black joy. He said it's as essential as any political or educational fight.
'There's a song that says, 'This joy that I have, the world did not give it to me, and the world can't take it away,'' he said. 'We are still here, despite everything that has been done to diminish our humanity. That's good news. And we have a responsibility to carry the spirit of those who came before us, both in our struggles and in our celebrations. Because they persevered, we can persevere. Because they sacrificed, we can serve. Because they gave, we can do more.'
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