WELLFLEET — When the First Congregational Church and a local group, ArtPeaceMakers, hosted the town’s first public Juneteenth celebration last Thursday, they wanted it to be fun. That meant “bouncy houses, art, storytime, snacks, and face painting,” said the Rev. Jonathan Elsensohn, one of the organizers.
Bonnie Robicheau, a member of the congregation, saw purpose in the entertainments. “This is a good way to draw the kids in and then teach them about Juneteenth,” she said. In addition to the bouncing and face chalk, Harriet Korim, a leader of the ArtPeaceMakers, read to the children in a shady corner of the church yard. It was Juneteenth: A Children’s Story Special Edition by Opal Lee — a picture book that tells the story of the events of June 19, 1865, when over 250,000 enslaved people in Texas learned they were free. Opal Lee was central to the fight for the day’s recognition as a federal holiday; she is known as “the Grandmother of Juneteenth.”
The history seemed to be getting through to the kids. About halfway through the reading, a toddler who seemed to have just learned to speak burst out, “Slavery is really, really bad!”
Elsensohn first got involved in organizing the event because “Juneteenth is a federal holiday and kids are off; it would be a good day to plan around.” Once the church reached out to the Art Peacemakers, they all began to “lean into the notion of celebrating Juneteenth as part of the event,” he said.
The holiday, Elsensohn said, is about American values. “We don’t have a large African American population,” in Wellfleet, he said. “We decided that despite this fact, Juneteenth is part of the American story. The ideals of equality and freedom for all are things that all of us celebrate as Americans.”
Hosting such an event meant charting new ground: never had two bouncy castles been inflated beside the First Congregational Church. These details fell to Richard Robicheau, a member of the congregation who describes himself as the church’s “fix-it-up guy.”
He sat in a lawn chair beside a retro carnival-style popcorn machine. To his right was his pickup truck powering a generator, supplying energy to run the bouncy castles and popcorn machine. This was the result of some quick thinking as the castles kept “blowing the church’s circuit breaker.”
This first attempt at commemorating the holiday in Wellfleet was a truly small-town affair, but it may have provided a foundation on which the holiday can expand in future years. “We are hoping that this will be the first of many such events,” said Elsensohn.
