Proclaiming the energy of emancipation

Port St. Joe sixth grader Jamal Darling, Jr., reads his essay on Juneteenth. At right is Marquita Thompkins, president of the Marquita Thompkins, president of Pioneer Bay Community Development Corporation, which sponsored the event. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Freddie Miller, with the 2nd Infantry Regiment United States Colored Troops Living History Association, holds up a reproduction of the regimental flag. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Sgt. Major Jarvis Rosier, Sr, with the 2nd Infantry Regiment United States Colored Troops Living History Association, delivers remarks at Saturday’s Juneteenth celebration in Port St. Joe. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Members of the 2nd Infantry Regiment United States Colored Troops Living History Association and its Ladies Auxiliary are, from left: Tonja L. Webb, Deborah Pace, Celia Suluki, Sharon Miller, Jacqueline Edwards, Kerry Manning and Jarvis Rosier, Sr. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

The newly crowned Mr. and Miss North Port St. Joe are, Londyn Lewis, left, and Donell Henry. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

The North Port St. Joe royalty rode in the Juneteenth parade. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

Dancers from Panama City’s Dance Kraze ‘All Charmed Up” took part in the Juneteenth parade and later performed in the Washington High School gymnasium. [ David Adlerstein | The Star ]

In the ninth year of its local observance in Port St. Joe, and the fourth year since it was designated a federal holiday, and the 159th year since it marked that day in Texas, June 19, when a Union general delivered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas, Gulf County marked Juneteenth in celebration Saturday.

Beginning with a golf cart parade that wound from Reid Avenue to the grounds of the former Washington High School, the day featured a historical reenactment by the 2nd Infantry Regiment United State Colored Troops Living History Association.

Remarks were delivered by Sgt. Major Jarvis Rosier, Sr., retired after 34 years in the Army, who led  the living history group in their recreation of a camp, on the high school grounds, that colored troops might have been housed in when they fought in the Civil War following a gradual admission into non-combatant roles that ended with Order #143 on May 22, 1863 with the creation of armed soldier units.

Rosier spent the bulk of his remarks detailing the Florida wartime experience for these troops, noting in broad strokes the flurry of modern controversies that have surrounded African-American history in the schools.
“In some cases they work to delete our history altogether,” he said. 

“We must add to those pages of history,” said Minnie Likely, who was instrumental through the Old West Florida Primitive Baptist Association in bringing the Tallahassee-based history group to the city’s Juneteenth event. “Let us plan to write our story among history.”

In Apalachicola, Holy Family Senior Center was the site of an afternoon political forum, sponsored by H’COLA (Hillside Coalition of Laborers for Apalachicola), followed by an evening of food vendors, entertainment and children’s games outside.