UNION COUNTY, N.C. — This week, President Joe Biden signed a bill making Juneteenth a federal, national holiday.
Juneteenth commemorates events in Texas in 1865, when the last slaves were told of the Emancipation Proclamation. It is celebrated on the 19th of June each year in the United States.
What You Need to Know
Juneteenth Celebration at Wingate University was an opportunity for dancers of all ages to commemorate the day
Some of the middle school dancers said it was important to teach people the importance of Juneteenth
Juneteenth is now a federal, national holiday
To celebrate the day in Union County, a group of dancers hosted an event at Wingate University and expressed what it means to them and the community.
MufukaWorks Dance Company, led by Elsie Mufuka, spent Thursday practicing for the event Thursday evening.
For two middle-schoolers in her dance company, it was a moment of self expression.
"I like doing dancing because I don’t like to talk to people, and I can use dance to express my feelings and tell people’s stories,” Laila Purvis said.
"Other people sing, other people act, but my way is dancing,” added her friend Zaria Rogers.
Purvis and Rogers performed three times during the celebration as part of the Square Root Youth Dancers. For Purvis, it was her way of celebrating Juneteenth.
"It’s when my people got free. They were able to do things, and they were able to be themselves and be together with their families,” Purvis said about the day.
Purvis goes to Parkwood Middle School in Union County and wants to spend her life dancing.
Her groupmates in the Youth Dancers are from Union County and Mecklenburg schools. Together on the stage, they expressed to each other and the audience what Juneteenth meant to them.
"It’s about how people felt, the celebration of them being free,” Purvis said during the performance.
It was a lively celebration at Wingate on Thursday night. With dancing, speeches and poems, they tackled topics like supremacy, slavery and stereotypes.
"Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff and wasn’t scared of nothing either,” Rogers read from a poem at one point.
During the ceremony, Elsie Mufuka weaved her story in and out of the performances, talking about her ancestors and how she grew to know and care for the children in her dance company. Mufuka is a dance teacher for McClintock Middle School and is the current N.C. Dance Educator of the year.
The crowd danced and clapped with her and her students as they went, marking an important day in American history and learning a lesson these dancers wanted to share.
"That Juneteenth is very imporant, people need to celebrate it,” Purvis said after the dancing was over.
The celebration was hosted by the Unity House Multicultural Center at Wingate University.
Purvis and Rogers said their favorite perfomance of the night was a dance called "Stereotypes," meant to challenge how people think about others.