A three-lecture series on Juneteenth will examine the past, present and future state of racial and social justice. Crystal Bradley, vice president of the , coordinated the series. UofL News caught up with Bradley to discuss Juneteenth and its continuing impact.

UofL News: How do you feel like our collective understanding of Juneteenth has evolved the past few years?

Bradley: There has been more awareness for everyone about the significance of Juneteenth, not just an awareness but a kind of freedom to celebrate the event as part of history. Juneteenth is not just Black history but it’s American history. It should be a positive thing and something that unifies us, not divides us. We can celebrate the idea of such an oppressive system of slavery being dismantled. You can imagine the enslaved getting this message that you don’t have to live this way anymore. That’s what we celebrate with Juneteenth, this message that you’re finally free from this oppressive system.

UofL News: What do you think is the most important thing that needs to be communicated about Juneteenth?

Bradley: Accuracy. Having a correct insight on history and the significance of it. It is not a divisive or taboo subject, and while it’s not pretty, it is American history and it’s our history to be embraced and shared by all. Information should be shared with everyone, so I think that’s the most critical part.

UofL News: How did the thematic concept of past, present and future – the idea of where we’ve been, where we are, where we’re going – how does that play into the struggle for racial equality?

Bradley: The Juneteenth event planning committee was deciding how to frame it, and we thought with everything going on this year, there are some people who want to rewrite history, and some just want to bury it altogether. With this theme of past, present, future, it’s kind of hitting the pause button on all of the noise to say, hey, let’s have an open, intelligent discussion with scholars and people who know about this subject matter. Let’s look back where we were as a community and talk about how the decisions made back then affected us, and how what we do now is going to affect us 20, 30, 40 years from now. We don’t want to stay stuck, so we need to have a vision to look forward. Our goal with this theme was to reflect, to pause and look at where we are and then to envision where we want to be in the future.

UofL News: Can you tell us a little bit about each speaker of the series?

Bradley: Monday, June 17th, Metro District 4 Councilman Jecorey Arthur is going to speak to our present component. One reason we chose him is because it is the 60^th anniversary of “freedom summer,” where in 1964, there was a big push to increase Black voter registration. That was in alignment with looking at how decisions we made back then plays into where we are now and the importance of voting, and how that plays into where and how we move forward as a society. 

On Tuesday, June 18, John Mays, former director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) for Yum Brands, also known as the “I believe I can – man,” is going to address the future aspect. He’s a dynamic coach, author, entrepreneur and DEI motivational speaker. He brings a lot of energy, and he’s going to speak to that vision that we can have for ourselves as African Americans and as Americans collectively.

June 19^th is the official holiday, so on Thursday, June 20, the Coalition on the History of the Enslaved, which is a partnership and a collective of four diverse groups here in Louisville, will close out our speaker series. These are scholars who have deep knowledge of all the historical facts and points and sites within Louisville and surrounding areas such as the Oxmoor farm. They will speak about the impacts of the past, and tie back to how it affects us now and going forward. There’s been a lot of talk of slavery and what it is and what it isn’t, but I guarantee after listening to this group  we’ll all walk away knowing more than we did before.

UofL News: Where do you see positive/ negative movement in addressing racial justice issues?

Bradley: Positive movement is that people are feeling more empowered to take up that fight, because it is a fight when you are going against forces and groups that feel like a zero-sum game. If you have, that means I can’t have, when we can actually all have. It’s a long, tiring fight, but I am encouraged that people – Black, white, Latinx – are all willing to say no, we’re going to push back on this agenda. No, we are not going to accept that.

We’re going to continue to fight, and when they change the rules of the game, which they do, then we’ll adjust and adapt but we’ll continue to push equity and inclusion forward because it’s important.

What is negative is that for every step made to increase equitable solutions, the powers-that-be are there to knock you ten steps back. Now they’re passing legislation and controlling what goes on in the classroom and changing the narrative. They’re in powerful positions that can affect that kind of change. So that’s really discouraging, but we wouldn’t have come this far as a society, as a community, as a collective, had we just accepted other people’s agendas years ago.

Learn more about the .

To help bring that story to life, Locust Grove recently reached out to the .����

, a teaching assistant earning her MFA in performance, was tapped to reenact the role of an enslaved distiller for visitors at the . Her job is also to help craft the character and storyline for the role she’ll be playing.

It’s no easy task. There are few records of the who lived at Locust Grove and none left in their own words.

“Slaves were the majority of the people who lived here 200 years ago. But it’s more challenging to recreate their experience than the owners of the farm because the owners left behind letters that tell of their perspective,” said Brian Cushing, Locust Grove Program Director, in a. “We’re trying to respectfully and authentically bring the characters of the enslaved African Americans who lived and worked at Locust Grove to life in the same way that we do other characters from the site’s history.”

To prepare, Edwards learned the distilling process, read letters from Locust Grove owners’ and reviewed an inventory of slaves which described them only by name, age and duty. She said she’ll ultimately create a composite character culled from her broader research.  

Storytelling about slavery is “touchy, you have to approach it carefully,” she said. “Many people, black or white, seem to prefer to avoid it.” 

She’s appreciative of the opportunity to represent African Americans in such a context to help educate people.

“No matter how hard a thing it is to do, it’s still an important thing to do,” she said. “Children and people should know that slavery was a part of our American history. I like being a representative in that way.”

When Locust Grove initially contacted Theatre Arts,, whose teaching, directing, writing and storytelling focus on people of the African diaspora, offered some thoughts on involving students in the reenactment.

“I explained it would not be appealing or interesting to an African American to perform the role of an enslaved character that is marginal to the main action. The character must be central to the story, not peripheral,” Burton said. “Also the actor must have the freedom to create stories that actually represent the enslaved people’s lives and feelings, and not some made up, soft pedaling of what it meant to be enslaved.”

Edwards said she’s felt supported and appreciated by Locust Grove’s staff through the process. 

Edwards, who also teaches at Kentucky Shakespeare’s camp, is playing the lead role in the .

She earned her BFA in musical theatre from William Peace University in North Carolina and chose to come to UofL for graduate studies as Theatre Arts offers the only in the country.

“Both heritage and theatre are very important to me,” she said.

Written in anticipation of Kentucky’s August 1849 constitutional convention, the 12-page pamphlet employed statistics and other data to support the social, moral and economic evils of slavery, said Archivist for Regional History, ASC, Tom Owen.

“This document has significant teaching value,” said Owen said. “Imagine here in Kentucky, a slave state, someone would advocate – 11 years before the Civil War – that the state should emancipate the slaves.”

The pamphlet was penned by a committee that included prominent Louisville-area statesmen Reuben Dawson, James Speed, William E. Glover, William P. Boon and Bland Ballard. It advocated that the state constitution outlaw and gradually eliminate slavery from Kentucky.

Students, faculty, researchers and other visitors are welcome to peruse the document at ASC in the lower level of Ekstrom Library.