Discovering Juneteenth

Article Reprinted, Courtesy of Brownsville States-Graphic

OPINION | DISCOVERING JUNETEENTH
By Leslie McGraw, Great Grandniece of Elbert Williams

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I didn’t grow up celebrating Juneteenth.

Like many Black Americans in the Midwest, I knew of it only vaguely—something about Texas, something about the end of slavery, but it felt distant, like someone else’s history. In my 11^th grade year, the Ann Arbor branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) hosted the first local Juneteenth Celebration. I attended and was wowed at the history spilling out of my neighbors, extended family, and church family about Black history across the Diaspora, their family histories and lived experiences, and their early days in the town that has now become associated with higher education and liberalism. On Saturday, June 14, I attended the 31st local Juneteenth observation in Ann Arbor. I have attended most of the 31 years. Some years I shared poetry or writing, some years I volunteered. Still, it wasn’t until 2015, when I began digging into my family history, that I discovered how deeply Juneteenth connects to my own roots—and how much unfinished business it represents.

As a young girl, my grandmother mentioned her ‘Uncle Albert’ to me for the first time. She spoke of him being her favorite uncle and some of their good times, before mentioning his cruel murder. She shuddered, decades after the fact, from the terrifying memories it brought to her present. She told me that she didn’t like to dwell on the past, on unpleasant things. From that point on, she rarely unlocked this metaphorical box containing clues to him for me to get a peek into this part of her story. In 2015, I was contacted by Cold-Case Investigative Attorney Jim Emison by mail following a lead from Lay Historian John Ashworth saw from one of my blog posts about my grandmother. This mailing contained information, irrefutable proof, that not only was I a descendant of Elbert Williams (I thought Grandma was saying Albert, not Elbert), but that he was the first known NAACP member to be murdered for civil rights work. Killed in the line of duty, he was organizing Black citizens to vote in Brownsville, Tennessee, in 1940. For that, he was abducted, tortured, and found dead in the Hatchie River. The date of his murder? June 20, 1940—just one day after Juneteenth.

That timing, once invisible to me, now feels haunting.

It also reframed everything I thought I knew about Juneteenth. I began to understand that June 19, 1865, wasn’t just a celebration of emancipation—it was a checkpoint in a much longer fight for justice and dignity. Slavery may have legally ended, but freedom? That’s something we’re still organizing toward.

Since 2015, Brownsville community members, my family and I have been reclaiming Elbert’s legacy, piece by piece. The Elbert Williams Memorial Committee, Chaired by John Ashworth, hosted a soil collection ceremony near the Hatchie River, where several of my cousins took part. Attorney Emison led a charge to create a historical marker in downtown Brownsville, Tennessee. The ceremony, held on June 20, 2015 was attended by over a thousand people and featured a public address by Congressman John Lewis, former NAACP National Chair, Cornell Brooks and more! We testified before the Tennessee legislature to reopen the case. My cousin Crystal Ginyard and I became part of an international exhibit, debuting at the Juneteenth installment of the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival. We’ve partnered with civil rights groups to hold community conversations. In 2022, I created the Elbert Williams Voting Corner to promote civic education and voter engagement. As we’ve done this work, I’ve come to see Juneteenth not just as a day of remembrance—but as part of a larger, patriotic season that includes Flag Day and the Fourth of July.

We don’t often connect those three moments—Flag Day on June 14, Juneteenth on June 19, and the Declaration of Independence on July 4—but I believe that we should. They each mark promises made to the American people: liberty, equality, and the right to self-govern. But for generations of people—especially Black Americans—those promises were delayed or denied.

Elbert Williams believed in those promises. He believed that Black people in Haywood County deserved the same rights guaranteed by the Constitution—the same rights celebrated on Flag Day and Independence Day. At just 31 years old, Uncle Elbert did not live long enough to write his memoir or be quoted as a leader. However, his courage and conviction shines through his actions and the folks he interacted with, through the values I know our family has upheld since our time in the Americas. His life and death were not in opposition to American values; they were an insistence that those values apply to everyone.

And yet, here we are in 2025, still fighting voter suppression, still witnessing attacks on truthful education, still navigating a political climate that makes many feel unsafe to fully participate in democracy.

This Juneteenth, I’m reflecting not only on emancipation but on what it takes to fulfill the spirit of the Declaration of Independence—that all people are created equal, that governments derive their power from the consent of the governed, and that justice must be available to all.

Elbert Williams never lived to see a world where that was true. But his legacy calls us forward.

As we raise our flags, remember our history, and celebrate our independence this summer, let us also remember those who gave their lives in pursuit of freedom—not only from slavery, but from silence, erasure, and inequality. Let us remember Elbert.

And let us keep working toward a world where Juneteenth isn’t just about what was ended, but what we continue to build.

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Leslie McGraw is a poet, educator, and activist. She is the founder of the Elbert Williams Voting Corner and a descendant of Elbert Williams of Brownsville, Tennessee.

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