Juneteenth Celebration Keynote Speaker: ‘Know Who You Are’
Juneteenth Celebration Keynote Speaker: ‘Know Who You Are’
Posted
David L. Slone-
Juneteenth Celebration Keynote Speaker: ‘Know Who You Are’Juneteenth commemorates the end of slavery on June 19, 1865, in the U.S., and as the keynote speaker Saturday at the Juneteenth celebration in Warsaw, Lakesha Green recalled her great-great-grandmother, who was a former slave.
It’s a story she seldom tells.
“So, I was in my office and, as I was preparing for today, my development director, she asked me, ‘What else do the people not know about you?’ And, it took me back a decade when I lived in Savanna, Georgia - the last time I spoke at a Juneteenth as a speaker - and I haven’t told this story here and I think this is appropriate and the place to share it because Warsaw is becoming my home. It’s my home now,” Green, the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts executive director, said.
While she moved to Warsaw from New York, Green is a southern girl.
“I am from Montgomery, Alabama, the birthplace of the Civil Rights Movement and the cradle of everything that makes it possible to do what we do, but I want to take it back even further to my great-great-grandmother, who was a former slave, and I had the opportunity to share six tender years with her,” Green said.
As a 6-year-old girl, she said her great-great-grandmother passed away holding her hand as that was how close they were.
“When I think about my why ... my son is my why, but my great-great-grandmother Ida and my great-grandmother Ellen are the reason I am able to stand in this community that I can walk into any room. On my great-great-grandmother Ida’s deathbed, she always spoke over our lives ... she always reminded me, ‘You are my why. You are the reason why I want you to go to school,’” she said.
When, as a little girl, Green would come home and complain about learning her numbers, her great-great-grandmother would say, “I didn’t have the opportunity to count. I wasn’t allowed to count. Then she goes into the story. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, Grandma, why are you telling me this?’ She told me why on her deathbed.”
That was a long day Green will never forget. She woke Green up at 7 a.m. and told her that it was going to be a long day. Green thought she’d be doing something like shelling peas.
“But, nah, it was on her bedside. And, that day, every hour, she spoke an affirmation over me. And her last affirmation, she said to me, ‘You’re going to walk in many rooms that everybody’s not going to look like me,’” Green recalled. “I didn’t understand as a 6-year-old what exactly was she talking about. She always told me that, ‘You’re going to inspire and you have to always understand your why.’”
Her great-great-grandmother had a whip, because she was beaten, but one of her scars stayed across her back. When she fell ill and could not lotion herself, Green would do it for her.
“I would always say, ‘Man, this is a long road. That is what we called it. And she would say, ‘Yeah, because there’s a long road that you’re going to be on and I’m not going to be here and I’m going to be watching from above,’” Green said. As a child, Green thought her great-great-grandmother would always be around. She told Green she would eventually understand and to keep on living.
“So the prayers of my great-great-grandmother, her last words to me were, ‘Inspire and understand whose you are because somebody is always going to try to tell you who you are.’ That’s why I’m here, because if it wasn’t for - of course, the good Lord on our side - but also the prayers of my great-great-grandmother and my great-grandmother, I promise you I wouldn’t be able to take on the Wagon Wheel Center for the Arts,” she said.
Green is not only the first female executive director of the Wagon Wheel, but she’s also the first African American to hold the position. She said something told her that Warsaw and the Wagon Wheel were her places to be.
“I’m excited to be a part of this celebration, and I am just excited about where this community is going and all the work that’s been put in into this community has been phenomenal,” Green said.
She talked about how her best friend does not look like her and she has many friends that do not look like her, though she has many who do, and she’s friends with everybody.
“It’s a beautiful thing because that’s what makes us beautiful and I understand that journey of what my great-grandmother Ellen and Ida talked about. They didn’t want me to be in a box. They knew that my journey was going to be bigger than Maplesville, Alabama. They knew that my journey was going to be bigger than Montgomery, Alabama,” she said.
Green said she’s very grateful and humbled by her experience and journey in this community.
During her talk, she also mentioned she’s sat at the table with Coretta Scott King, John Lewis and Rosa Parks. She didn’t appreciate it until she left home that she shared the table with icons.
“The last thing I want to say, that my grandmother told me, ‘Don’t take my pain, don’t honor my pain. Honor my strength that I was able to endure and pass it along. I took the pain for you. Stand on the shoulders and continue to know who you are,” Green stated.
Omotayo Rite of Passage, Fort Wayne, provided entertainment and music through drumming as people walked into the Center Lake Pavilion in Warsaw for the Juneteenth celebration and throughout the event.
After a catered meal, everyone stood together and sang “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” which has become the signature song of every Juneteenth celebration.
Local historian Joe Banks gave a 15-minute talk about how Juneteenth came about up until President Joe Biden signed a bill on June 17, 2021, to make it an official federal holiday.
Kosciusko County Senior Services Executive Director David Neff talked about the services his organization as well as comments to those in attendance who have his skin color.
“From now on, it should have been a long time ago, zero tolerance for hate speech. Zero. If you’re complacent, you’re complicit. If you hear someone say something, it’s our responsibility to call them out,” he said.
Raquel Hoyt, owner of Glitter Hair & Beauty Supply, 1135 E. Winona Ave., Warsaw, talked about giving in the community, being a foster parent and opening doors for others.
Sara McNeal Strahan Lenfestey, One Warsaw, and organizer of the Juneteenth celebration, along with Suzette Clayton and Karen Erba, also of One Warsaw, announced two awards. One was presented to Banks, who, among his many accomplishments, co-founded the Committee to Commemorate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; and the other was to go to Marsha Cook, a longtime Warsaw Community Schools teacher who opened doors for diversity, who wasn’t able to be present Saturday.
PJ Hardy, a 10-year Zimmer Biomet employee representing African and Black Leaders for Excellence (ABLE), an employee resource group at Zimmer Biomet that co-sponsors the Juneteenth celebration, recognized Shawn and Karlise Stephens for their 34 and 35 years, respectively, at Zimmer Biomet. The couple retired this year.
“We wish them the best as they look to make a move down south. We’re certainly going to miss them,” Hardy said.
Karlise thanked everyone for coming out. He said he and Shawn have lived in Warsaw for 35 years and raised their daughter here and it’s “just a phenomenal community.”
He thanked Zimmer Biomet and ABLE for recognizing their retirement. “We are grateful, humbled by this,” he said.
Walter Johnson provided the opening and closing prayer, while Charles Cotton played his saxophone while everyone sang “We Shall Overcome.”
