June 2024 WATERritual
Celebrate Juneteenth Honoring Opal Lee’s Legacy
By Diann L. Neu and WATER Staff
Watch the WATERritual here on YouTube.
Preparation: Have near a pitcher of water, a living plant, and red food or drink to share, like raspberry or hibiscus tea, apple, strawberries, raspberries, cherries, watermelon, pomegranate, red wine, red soda, or even red velvet cake!
Welcome and Call to Gather
Welcome to our WATERritual, “Celebrate Juneteenth Honoring Opal Lee’s Legacy.” Black activist Opal Lee, the Grandmother of Juneteenth, envisioned June 19th as a holiday to celebrate emancipation for all people. Thanks to her persistence, her mission was a success. The 46th president of the United States, Joseph Biden, signed this historic legislation on June 17, 2021, and Opal Lee was present when he signed it. On May 3, 2024, the 97-year-old Opal Lee received the Medal of Freedom from President Biden.
Today, Juneteenth is a federal holiday that commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States. It also celebrates the faith, resilience, and hopefulness of the people who were enslaved.
Juneteenth—also called Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, Freedom Day, and America’s second Independence Day—commemorates the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 to 25,000 enslaved people. It celebrates Black joy and American hope, the promise of freedom and equality.
To join in that celebration, let’s listen to “Oh Freedom.” This post-1865 song was an anthem of the Civil Rights movement and was made popular by human rights activist and singer Odetta who was often referred to as “The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement.” She sang “Oh Freedom” at the March on Washington in 1963. She inspired Joan Baez.
Song: “Oh Freedom” sung by Joan Baez
Prayer
Godde of many names, You created each of us, all peoples and nations, in your image.
On this Juneteenth, as we celebrate freedom, grant us the grace and courage to resist slavery, human bondage, and racism in every form. Strengthen us to use our freedoms to bring about justice and equality for all. We beg you, let freedom ring from generation to generation.
Amen. Blessed Be. May It Be So.
Opal Lee’s Story
Although Opal Lee has seen and experienced a lot of history, her life is defined by one date: June 19.
She was born in Marshall, Texas in 1926 as a descendant of slaves. In 1939, her family moved to a predominantly white Fort Worth neighborhood. The night they moved into their new home, an angry white mob vandalized their house and burned it down. Opal and her family escaped and ran for shelter with a friend a few blocks away.
After graduating from her county’s only Black high school, she received a BA in Elementary Education from Wiley College and an MA in Counseling and Guidance from North Texas State University.
She had four children from a young marriage, for whom she worked multiple small jobs to support, including teaching at an elementary school. She continued her corporate career as a homeschool counselor and as an educator for Fort Worth Independent School District.
When she retired, she delved deeper into social activism and was active in many community causes like the founding of the Tarrant County Black Historical and Genealogical Society.
Later, she started an advocacy walk from Texas to Washington, D.C. with the goal to gather 100,000 signatures to petition for Juneteenth to become a public holiday. She walked 2.5 miles at a time to symbolize the two-and-a-half years it took for the Emancipation Proclamation to reach Texas. She ended the walk with 1.5 million signatures. Because of Opal Lee’s work, Congress passed legislation to make Juneteenth a public holiday and she was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Video: Listen to Opal Lee and watch her receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden for her efforts to establish Juneteenth as a national holiday
Pouring Libation
The libation ceremony is a way of honoring ancestors in African cultures, African traditional religions, and many others. We will offer a libation by pouring drops of fresh water onto a living plant to remember those who have struggled for freedom. After each pouring, our response is “Ashe” (Ahshay). This Yoruba word means “creative power” or “amen,” which means “so be it.”
In the spirit of remembrance, we pour this libation seven times throughout our ritual tonight.
First pouring:
With this first pouring, we acknowledge the Divine Source of many names in all nations.
Ashe.
Second pouring:
With this second pouring, we acknowledge the generations that fought, died, and led us to freedom from slavery persecution, Jim Crow laws, and Civil Rights abuses.
Ashe.
Third pouring:
With the third pouring, we honor our ancestors like Opal Lee who have made this day possible.
Ashe.
Video Reading: “We Rose,” written by Kristina Kay, is considered the official poem of Juneteenth reflecting the collective journey of Black people from homeland, to chains, and, finally, to freedom. (Read by MsHoney)
From Africa’s heart, we rose
Already a people, our faces ebon, our bodies lean,
We rose
Skills of art, life, beauty and family
Crushed by forces we knew nothing of, we rose
Survive we must, we did,
We rose
We rose to be you, we rose to be me,
Above everything expected, we rose
To become the knowledge we never knew,
We rose
Dream, we did
Act, we must
Fourth pouring:
With the fourth pouring, we admire the strength and persistence that allowed people of color to rise and keep rising today, despite the sorrowful struggles they encountered.
Ashe.
Video Reading: Amanda Gorman, the first National Youth Poet Laureate, reads her poem “We The People”
We the people live in a less than perfect union
That accuses the vulnerable and never the top class and race
When children are “illegal” and intolerance bans humans
I wonder who “we the people” are in the first place
“We the people” meant All Lives Matter,
But are white lives living a coincidence
When if you’re not male or pale
you get destroyed for demonstrating dissidence?
When the color of his skin gives a killer assumed innocence?
But still we will rise up, advocate and activate,
With the peoples’ diligence
Let’s speak names to “we the people”
So they are not lost in executive orders’ lines
Protect them from prick of tweet, pen, bullet, or steeple
Sturdy our spines to keep making signs and reading the signs
It’s hectic, apocalyptic, there’s skeptics, but we can be united.
For what makes America great is diversity and democracy reignited.
Fifth pouring:
With this fifth pouring, we honor the future generations who question, challenge, and let freedom ring.
Ashe.
Song: “I Remember, I Believe” from Raise Your Voice by Sweet Honey in the Rock
I don’t know how my mother walked her trouble down
I don’t know how my father stood his ground
I don’t know how my people survive slavery
I do remember, that’s why I believe
I don’t know how the rivers overflow their banks
I don’t know how the snow falls and covers the ground
I don’t know how the hurricane sweeps through the land
Every now and then
Standing in a rainstorm, I believe
I don’t know how the angels woke me up this morning soon
I don’t know how the blood still runs through my veins
I don’t know how I rate to run another day
Still running, I believe
My God calls to me in the morning dew
The power of the universe knows my name
Gave me a song to sing and sent me on my way
I raise my voice for justice, I believe
Songwriters: Bernice Johnson Reagon; I Remember, I Believe lyrics © T.R.O. Inc.
Reflection | Sharing
What does Juneteenth mean to you? How does Opal Lee’s story motivate you to follow your dreams and seek change?
Prayers of Community
Sharing and Celebration of Food and Drink
For the blessing of the food and drink, take your cup of tea, your fruit, or your red velvet cake in your hand and stretch it towards the screen in memory of all who have suffered racial oppression at the hands of ignorant people.
Blessed are you Creator and Sustainer God, who made all people in your image, casting them in different shades and skin tones. Bless these red foods and drinks that we partake of, which signify the African people’s bloodshed and resilience. We thank you for nurturing, sustaining, and preserving this Race and for the spirit of perseverance and the will to live, forgive, and love all people with whom you have blessed them.
Holy God, we give you thanks as we share in the memory and love of the oppressed and move towards fully acknowledging that all people are made in your image and are equal in your sight. Amen.
Sixth pouring:
With the sixth pouring we acknowledge the work that has been done thus far, and we remain committed to continuing the work of dismantling systematic oppression against all people.
Ashe.
Take Action
Support Black American-led and Black American-serving campaigns. Here is a list of initiatives and actions you might consider including as part of your Juneteenth commemoration:
- Educate yourself on racial justice issues by going to a museum dedicated to or involving African American history
- Join racial justice talks and symposiums
- Stand in for voting rights protections by signing petitions and giving money to organizations dealing with this issue
- Advocate for police reforms that demand to make police interventions more transparent, better supervised and thus safer for people of color
- Support alternative first-responder agencies for addiction and mental health intervention
- Donate to legal defense funds for wrongly convicted Black Americans
- Provide educational materials and services for Black Americans behind bars
- Volunteer at a local food pantry or secondhand shop supporting the well-being of socially deprived people of color
- Read up on the life and work of Opal Lee. Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free by Alice Faye Duncan recounts the quest for freedom as seen through the eyes of the leader of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday
- Expand your understanding of this holiday through books that touch on themes of freedom, dignity, and equality. See the resources below this script for examples
Seventh pouring:
With the seventh pouring, we give thanks for those who continue to lead struggles for freedom today and for those who will be prophetic tomorrow. Let’s be sure to include ourselves.
Ashe.
Sending Forth
Let us send one another forth remembering the words of Opal Lee:
“Remember my words for safekeeping. Remember what I say. Juneteenth is bigger than Texas, singing, or dancing bands. Juneteenth is freedom rising. And freedom is for everyone. Juneteenth is you and me.”
—from Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free by Alice Faye Duncan
Song: “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sung by Alicia Keys
Learn More with these Resources:
- Conversations with God by James Melvin Washington powerfully and movingly chronicles the spiritual struggle with slavery and racism.
- Forged in the Fiery Furnace by Diana L. Hayes gives a substantive history of African American spirituality, “born of the pride and the pain, the horror and the hope of a people whose eyes have always been watching God and whose hands stayed firm on the plow as they fought their way to freedom.”
- Race Matters by Cornel West is a sharp prophetic cry for Black freedom, justice, and transformation.
- The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Coretta Scott King offers 120 quotations from the great civil rights leader which shine with a sense of inherent dignity and high destiny.