Celebrating Juneteenth

Well, for those of you that don't have this written in personally on your calendars, you may have missed it. Yesterday was Juneteenth, which celebrates the signing of the Emancipation Proclammation, which ended slavery in our country. Yesterday there was a celebration at a park over in Davenport, to which Kathee and I attended after I got off work.
I heard about the celebration from a local tv show that does pieces on what's happening locally (Paula Sands Live). They said it was going to be a celebration of African-American history and culture. They said there were going to be people their doing/showing how to do corn rows (of which I'm sure we'll have to learn how to do). And so we went.
I learned from my father-in-law as we stood outside the US Embassy in Guatemala City (when I had forgotten all forms of idea at his house but had a meeting/breakfast with a man "on the inside") that 90% of life is acting like you belong there. I have taken that notion and applied it to pretty much every area of my life.
And so we did, although it was a bit hard to act like you belong there when you are the only white people there aside from the 2 Boys Club workers who are trying to corral their kids.
We were quite surprised at how little they had going on there, although there were about 200 people there. There was essentially one table having cultural things from Africa. It was pretty funny, however, when the lady told Kathee that the fabric we were looking at was from Kenya. When Kathee and I walked away Kathee told me that the fabric was certainly NOT from Kenya, and most likely made in the West to look like Kenyan fabric, or was made in West Africa. Nothing like having a wife who knows more about the African culture than... well, nevermind.
We did thoroughly enjoy the youth dance team from one of the AME churches in Davenport. And I enjoyed the high school choir from Bethel AME church in Davenport.
One thing both Kathee and I did notice that seems to be in stark contrast to holidays that white people celebrate was the presence of the church being INVITED to participate. The celebration yesterday is obviously a secular holiday (as opposed to a religious holiday). The emcee for the event was a pastor. They had 2 hours set aside for youth choirs and dance teams from churches to be on the stage performing. It was just stark how important the church seemed to be by the organizers. I saw and heard no one whining about "what are the churches doing here," or "I didn't know they were going to try to make this into a religious thing." Rather, I saw about everyone there singing and dancing with the music. I saw all ages cheering on the kids up on the stage. I didn't see the adolescents jockeying for position by putting down the little kids, but saw them encouraging the younger and whatnot. It was just very cool.
Anyway, that's my little editorial on Juneteenth in Davenport. I suppose it also served as a good practice for when Junior comes home and we take him to cultural events like this. It also served as a good discussion starter for Kathee and I (should we take him to things like this as his cultural background is Ethiopian and not African-American. Will he want to know more about his Ethiopian background or will he the African-American? At what point do we bring him into the discussion of how involved he wants to be in things like this, etc?).
I love talking to Kathee about stuff like this. We still feel like we are just two kids (30 years old, have you) with a dream that may or may not be achieved. But we love the prep all the same.

Oh yeah, the blog may be a little dead for the next 2 weeks as on Tuesday I leave for the country of Moldova for a two week missions trip.

Thanks for reading.

Isaac T