Stanford honors Juneteenth with forums, food and films

Community members participated in film screenings, food tastings and identity-focused discussion forums during the months of June.

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Stanford’s Juneteenth Committee hosted a vibrant array of events last month including art exhibits, cooking events and discussion forums to honor the holiday’s historical significance.

Juneteenth, short for June 19, marks the day General Gordon Granger marched into Galveston, Texas in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation, to ensure that all enslaved people could become free. The following year, freedmen in Texas organized “Jubilee Day” on June 19, which has since become an annual celebration of freedom. In 2021, President Joe Biden designated the day a federal holiday.

The committee’s programming began on June 4 with an opening art exhibit at the Redwood City Campus and a screening of “Rising: The Hall of Negro Life.” Many Bay Area arts communities such as the African American Quilt Guild of Oakland participated in the events that followed, sharing personal narratives through art.

Several food-centered events also gave participants a taste of Black culinary culture. Chefs Terry Braggs and William Montagne shared recipes and hosted food sampling sessions on June 18. During the “Food & Community” event on June 19, Chef Dillon Campbell served dishes like fried fish and jerk chicken and provided insights on the historical significance of the menu items.  

Braggs chose a risotto-style jambalaya and fried green tomato salad as his menu of the day during his signature live cooking demonstration on June 25. 

“If you look inside you can see the red, the green, the yellow,” he said. “It’s giving Juneteenth in such a beautiful and delicious way. It’s a time for celebration, a time for unity and a time for freedom — eating amazing food and making memories.”

Other parts of the University also hosted Juneteenth celebrations. Stanford School of Medicine Human Resources Group held two forums, one in-person and one virtual, for African American staff members across campus to connect with each other. Both forums were led by Solāris Noire, an operations director at the National Equity Project, an educational reform nonprofit. 

“Racial affinity is an important part of today, celebrating and bringing joy,” Noire said. “We are attempting to center history, center the Black racial experience. That is not necessarily asking for us to have ‘sameness,’ but really thinking about what it means to be Black at Stanford.”

During both forums, Noire led meditation sessions and guided conversations on African American culture. Among the questions the group discussed was “what are the lands, the hands and the food that carried you?”

Chris White, Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (JEDI) Coordinator at Stanford School of Medicine, reflected on this prompt during the forum.

White said that the “hands” that carried her were those of her great-grandmother Marianna Griffiths in Tyler, Texas. Griffiths “was a great foundation that I still stand on, and she “set the tone and trajectory” for White and her family. Griffiths also provided the food that carried White — a “good catfish dinner.”

White spoke positively of the forum. “It was refreshing to really get to know the people I work with beyond the workspace, understanding who they are as individuals and how that impacts their work and career choices,” she said.

Noire said that they hope to create an environment for attendees to make connections and also help meaningfully sustain those connections.

“Trying to make community and belonging more accessible and more approachable for folks is an opportunity for us to dream and imagine together,” they said. 

Although the month of June has passed, Juneteenth celebration continues. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) will host a “Julyteenth” event on Friday, July 19, open to the community.

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