By Charles Petty | Rant Correspondent
Sanford’s first official Juneteenth Celebration kicked off at the historic auditorium of W.B. Wicker Elementary School Wednesday with a multifaceted event that included poetry, dancing, proclamations, and music.
The Sanford Appearance Commission helped put on the first-of-its-kind event with the support of the North Carolina Arts Council, the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Lee County Arts Council.
A crowd of more than 200 people were in attendance, including Sanford Mayor Rebecca Wyhof Salmon and members of the city council.
One of the attendees, Elsie Caldwell, graduated from W.B. Wicker in 1968 when it was Lee County’s high school for African American students. Caldwell said she was “beyond glad the event was being held and happy that Sanford is celebrating this important holiday in African American history.”
Since 2021, when President Joe Biden proclaimed Juneteenth as a federal holiday, national recognition has soared for the holiday that has been celebrated within the Black community for over 150 years. Councilman Byron Buckels read a Juneteenth proclamation by then-Mayor Chet Mann in 2022 at a community Juneteenth event. This year’s proclamation was the first to establish every June 19 as Juneteenth.
The opening ceremony was performed by Salmon, who proclaimed an official observance of Juneteenth going forward. Several city council members were on stage during the reading and expressed gratitude for the amazing nature of this first public commemoration of the holiday. The master of ceremonies for the event was W.B. Wicker Assistant Principal Ronald Williams, who spoke highly of the rich history of W.B. Wicker and its importance to the African American community in Sanford.
“I am grateful and enjoying being part of this groundbreaking celebration. This school has such a rich history and legacy,” he said. “I love walking the halls and getting to be in this historic space.”
A major point of commemoration for the Sanford Juneteenth celebration has been the recent rediscovery of a famous Black Sanfordian named Line Bingham. Born into slavery in central North Carolina, she was given to a family in Texas. It was in Texas on June 19, 1865 that Union troops delivered the news to the enslaved population of Galveston that they were free under the Emicampcation Proclamation.
After hearing this life-changing news, Bingham and her daughter walked on foot from Texas to North Carolina and took up residence in present-day Sanford. She lived to be well over 100 and served as a cook for both the railroad engineer Col. Charles Ogburn Sanford, for whom the city is named, as well as the city’s first mayor, William Tucker.
A poetry contest to honor Bingham was held earlier this year. The first place winner from Lee Christian School, Jude McElreath, recited his poem after the mayor’s proclamation. McElreath and the second and third place winners – Liam Kelly and Heather Anne Davenport, respectively – all won gift cards donated by members of the Appearance Commission.
The Cultural Ensemble, founded in 1991 in Charlotte by Chris Thompson, performed several traditional African drum routines and dances. Thompson has been a major advocate of traditional African dance and music and said he loves to share the rich history of these traditions for education as well as entertainment.
For Thompson the three biggest factors of Juneteenth are family, friendship, and fellowship. This was on full display with his musical team helping lead interactive dances and singing with audience members. Thompson played drums during several occasions on stage, alongside Brazilan artists who came with him to highlight the importance of Brazil to the wider context of the Middle Passage and the Transatlatic Slave Trade. Native Brazilian musical instruments were played as part of the performance.
The second major act of the evening was led by Rod Brower and the Together N Unity Choir. Brower has performed in Sanford with the choir before, most notably at the Temple Theatre during the Branches and Roots concert in 2022. The choir performed a series of hymns and spoken word entitled “So They Sang.”
“This medley of songs that talk about the struggle and the triumph of Black culture help to shed light through song the importance of keeping Black culture alive and thriving and understanding why Juneteenth is so important to us as a community,” Brower said.
The choir sang an avant-garde production of gospel songs which spoke to the spiritual resilience of the Black community. The choir likewise engaged with the audience as members joyfully sang and clapped along to the group’s hymns of joy and unity. Writer Ray Owen was the narrator for the spoken parts of the performance which explored the significance of Juneteenth.