As organizations and groups throughout Hampton Roads prepare to honor Juneteenth, Colonial Williamsburg is marking the day with a new take on a tradition.
The inaugural Juneteenth Sunrise Service will be held Sunday at 6 a.m. by the oak tree on Market Square. Actress Tina Lifford will give the special keynote address.
According to a news release, the service is inspired by “Watch Night”, also known as “Freedom’s Eve”, which is a tradition in Black churches, “born out of the enslaved community’s ‘waiting for the hour’” on the night of Dec. 31, 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect on Jan. 1, 1863. The first documented Sunrise Service was conducted for Easter in 1732 by a Moravian community in Germany. Several denominations in the American colonies took up the tradition after it was apparently spread by Moravians who had come to the colonies.
Colonial Williamsburg’s Janice Canaday and her fellow officers in the foundation’s Black employee resource group played an instrumental role in putting together the service to commemorate Juneteenth, which marks the emancipation of enslaved people in the U.S.
This day is commemorated annually on June 19, the anniversary of Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger’s order proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas. In 2021, it was established as a federal holiday when President Joe Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.
According to Canaday, discussions and planning for the service began earlier this year.
“When we were asked about this, to come up for something for Colonial Williamsburg, I thought about something that would maybe go back and fetch a tradition,” she said. “Not something that has been totally gone away from, but it’s not as talked about (now) as it used to be when I was coming up as a young girl.”
As a kid, Canaday said that she attended sunrise services, usually on Easter Sundays, with her mom before the larger church service. She was also baptized during a sunrise service.
For Lifford, participating in the service was “easy to say yes to.”
“I have never been to Williamsburg and I have wanted to,” she said. “Now I get to … experience the historical, stepping back into time, and at the same time, (bring) a message that I think is affirmative to the whole historical journey and the power in the few.”
Lifford, who has dozens of acting credits in movies and television, will focus on that theme, and how people now can benefit from studying how “often a few people have made a huge difference” and understanding what it takes to make change.
“In any circumstance, there is the opportunity for a self-affirming perspective,” she said. “How do we take historical moments and find that self-affirming perspective in the midst of some really difficult and even heinous facts? This is an opportunity for me to speak to the empowering perspective that comes with the history of slavery and the human condition.”
In her household growing up, Lifford said that her family did not celebrate or discuss Juneteenth. It was only when she was graduating from high school and first attending college that the Black movement became “more robust,” she said, and she learned about Juneteenth.
Canaday’s hope is that the service will represent “a new beginning.”
“That’s what we really want here at Colonial Williamsburg,” she said. “To let folks know that hopefully it’s a new dawn, a new day, a new sunrise and a new experience here as to how we present the story of those people who were here — all of them — and how we address, embrace and engage with the community.”
More Juneteenth events
Juneteenth will be commemorated around the Williamsburg area with several events.
On Wednesday, Jamestown Settlement will host “a thought-provoking evening of history and performance exploring the precarious nature of freedom from 17th-century Jamestown to Juneteenth” with their Talking History Program: Prelude to Juneteenth event.
The program will feature a talk by Norfolk State University professor Dr. Cassandra Newby-Alexander, musical interludes by Sylvia Tabb & the Rejoicing Singers and dramatic readings from primary sources. The event begins at 7 p.m.
William & Mary will commemorate Juneteenth on Friday with an event on campus at Hearth: Memorial to the Enslaved. The event, which is scheduled for 3-6 p.m., features featuring poetry, music, a performance by the Elegba Folklore Society and more. Goods and food from various local vendors will be available for purchase.
Also on Friday, the Williamsburg Regional Library Gallery at the Stryker Center is hosting an opening reception for its 2nd Annual Juneteenth Commemorative Art Exhibition from 6-8 p.m. The exhibition features local and regional Black artists curated by Willis Potter, and will be on view through July 28.
On Saturday morning, a motor parade will kick off 9 a.m. at Highland Park, followed by the NAACP Youth Works and Williamsburg Police Department car show in Bicentennial Park from 10 a.m.-noon. Additionally, there will be a community fair with games and more.
In York County, a Juneteenth Celebration including family activities, live music, a showing of “The Princess & the Frog” and concessions will be held Saturday afternoon from 3-8 p.m. at the McReynolds Athletic Complex.
On Monday, Colonial Williamsburg will offer free admission in honor of Juneteenth.
Sian Wilkerson, 757-342-6616, [email protected]
