Juneteenth in Dallas: Residents reflect on history of the holiday in the ‘big city’

Sheniqua Cummings says her earliest recollections of Juneteenth in Dallas are from when she was a child in the 1970s. Music, dancing and good food — her grandmother’s chicken and dumplings were her favorite.

Some of her most vivid memories are of the family discussions and banter as dinner winded down. Relatives would peruse photo albums and tell stories about family history. She learned elders’ names, what they did for a living and about their successes in life.

“I think it’s important not to forget the struggle and sacrifices of a people who are a generation of survivors,” Cummings said. “They lived through centuries of bondage, so I appreciate their struggle and I want to be part of the remembrance for them. I want to preserve their history; the events, people and the places.”

For many Black Dallas residents, the celebration of freedom and liberty associated with Juneteenth existed well before President Joe Biden signed legislation making it a federal holiday. And some historians, including those in Dallas, say the story of Juneteenth cannot be told without discussing African Americans’ persistence in the fight for their freedom.

Deborah Hopes, president of Remembering Black Dallas, said these oral histories are vital to preserving those memories. Family-taught tales of past generations’ struggles and successes were key to her as a child living in the city during segregation. She hopes as events surrounding Juneteenth grow, the tales that make the holiday so special aren’t forgotten.

“What we, as a people need to start doing is becoming more vocal about the true plight of emancipation and freedom, and truly, educate our children as to what it means to be free,” said Hopes, who helped integrate South Oak Cliff High School. “And what that emancipation truly meant for us.”

Correcting the ‘traditional narrative’

Juneteenth — the day, June 19, 1865, Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston to announce President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation more than two years earlier — has been celebrated by the Black community, especially in Texas, for more than a century.

Much of the widespread recognition of Juneteenth is credited to Fort Worth-based civil rights activist Opal Lee, who successfully pushed the federal government to designate the day a national holiday.

Largely missing from the common explanations around emancipation are the stories of those who took freedom into their own hands, said North Texas-based historian and retired university professor W. Marvin Dulaney, who serves as the deputy director of the African American Museum of Dallas.

“The traditional narrative is that they sat on their hands and waited for Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation before they became free,” Dulaney said. “There is no narrative of how they took their freedom.”

Lincoln didn’t have a strong position on ending slavery, Dulaney said, pointing to documented statements the former president made during the Civil War era.

During a Monday presentation at Old City Park, Dulaney gave a fuller history about events preceding Lincoln’s signing the Emancipation Proclamation in January 1863, several months after he had issued a preliminary emancipation of slavery.

He explained how the increase in the number of African Americans running away from slave owners led to the Union Army adopting a policy in which former slaves were considered a “contraband” of war. Under the policy, people who escaped slavery in the South were not returned to their former oppressors.

After gaining their freedom, many served in the Union Army and fought to liberate others who were still enslaved.

“It’s one of the greatest stories that most Americans don’t know,” he said.

Looking back at celebrations in Dallas

Local genealogist and historian Donald Payton, whose family history is tied to some of the first African American slaves brought to present-day Dallas in the mid-1840s, said the first Juneteenth celebration in Dallas was in 1866.

During Monday’s event, Payton, 76, gave a tour through Old City Park and Millermore Mansion, where his ancestors were among the slaves brought to the area by the Miller family — the namesake of the historic structure. His family’s ties to Dallas go back 176 years, Payton said.

Payton recalled from his childhood how people would celebrate Juneteenth with parades, cookouts and family gatherings. Part of local celebrations was going to watch the Dallas Black Giants, an all-Black baseball team.

At the games, they would listen to what was then a relatively new genre of music: jazz. His family repeatedly went to Mexia in Limestone County, where “the whole town got up for Juneteenth,” Payton said.

“All of the stores would run Juneteenth specials, all of the places down Deep Ellum would be packed with people who would come in from the country to come to Dallas to celebrate Juneteenth in the big city,” Payton said.

Although some traditions have changed over the years, Payton said Juneteenth remains a day for Black families to remind each other of the strength of previous generations, and for the country to remember the true meaning of freedom.

Hopes, now a minister who spent decades in education, said Dallas has always had Juneteenth celebrations, but the sheer number has increased. There’s also more advertising with the event, but she wants the education of the holiday to be just as prevalent. Monday’s presentations, sponsored by a host of organizations including Remembering Black Dallas, were part of a string of educational and entertaining holiday celebrations this week in the city.

Tammy Derricks, president of the Five Mile Neighborhood Association, said one of her fondest memories of celebrating Juneteenth has a child in Dallas was getting to eat watermelons as a dessert treat after dinner.

As an adult, the holiday inspires her to do work in her community. She is currently trying to get historical designations for multiple parts of the Five Mile neighborhood.

It is important to remember the full history of Juneteenth and the actions of African Americans that led to the end of slavery in the U.S., but Derricks said it is equally important to preserve the history of how that freedom is tied to Black history in Dallas.

“When you come into Five Mile, it’s not just a name, it’s a history,” Derricks said. “When you think about the growth that’s going, all of these new residents who are coming to the area won’t know the history if we don’t recognize it.”