Black Resistance: Celebrating History

VOTE SoAR held it’s Celebration of Black Resistance at the Bronson House in Washington, AR on Friday evening. Brown started with an East African greeting of Arombe, which means we are all in this together. After a prayer and the African National Anthem Brown explained the reasons for the location of the event and talked about the importance of context, quoting we think in generality and live in detail.

Brown acknowledged all of the sponsors and talked about why the names for each level of categories of sponsor.

Park Superintendent Pam Beasley spoke. Beasley spoke about the overhaul of the exhibits and programming and the need for community involvement.

Brown talked about Juneteenth being the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Day and it being 160 years since the Emancipation Proclamation and asked the audience to be a part of VOTE SoAR.

Josh Williams, dressed in the proper attire did a reenactment of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Colonel Dwight May (which took place in 1865).

Charles Pace did performed an inspired and lively enactment of Frederick Douglass talking about his life. The enactment talked about the history of being a slave and gaining his freedom, his process of education, his involvement in recruiting freed blacks into the Union army, meeting with Lincoln, and international travels.

A quote which Pace made was the Republican party is the deck, everything else is the sea and stated three reasons for this: the Union Army, the Emancipation Proclamation and the 15th amendment.

Pace answered questions both in character and about his own own background and gave contact information for those who wanted to reach him.