Juneteenth Sermon Honors The Past

At a Juneteenth worship service on Dixwell Avenue Wednesday morning, Yale Divinity School Associate Professor Clifton Granby asked: ​“Has freedom really settled in?”

Granby delivered his sermon at Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ at 217 Dixwell Ave. 

In a partnership between the church and Andover Newton Seminary at the Yale Divinity School (YDS), the service included poetry readings, song, and sermons. All centered on not just the freedom of enslaved peoples in the past but on a continual practice of remembrance. To Granby, this is ​“what Juneteenth is all about.”

“It’s about the undying spirit of liberation, and yielding insistence on the primacy of joy,” Granby said. 

The service took place on a local and national holiday marking the proclamation of the end of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865, and celebrating Black freedom.

Titled ​“Take Care to Remember,” Granby’s sermon on Wednesday discussed the inequities of today, questioning if oppressed people can accept that freedom has truly arrived considering that it has not arrived for everyone. Granby focused in particular on the current violent displacements of peoples in Sudan and Palestinians in Gaza. He referenced the story of Exodus in which the Israelites escaped enslavement from the Egyptians. Freedom, to Granby, did not arrive when they escaped Egypt, noting the challenges of faith and uncertainty in the wilderness that befell the Israelites. 

“How are people to preserve their sense of collective identity when the howling winds of fatigue, persecution, and trauma threaten to take over?” Granby asked. 

He pointed to the incessant need for the people of today to remember the efforts of the past that have gotten a collective closer to freedom. In specific, Granby highlighted the history of George Washington Williams. After fighting in the Civil War and in Mexico, Williams returned to civilian life and began collegiate studies in religion. Initially enrolling at Howard College, he left to pursue a degree at Newton Theological Seminary. Williams was the first African-American graduate of the Andover Newton Seminary in 1874. 

Wednesday morning, a summit with the Andover Newton Seminary studying African-American alumni of the Newton School, and Williams in particular, joined the congregation in the worship service.

Interim Pastor Andre Gilford also emphasized the need for remembrance, pointing to the history of the Dixwell church itself. According to Gilford, the church was founded as a protest to White churches like the Center Congregational Church on the New Haven Green which did not allow Black worshippers. Since then, instrumental organizers and civil rights leaders, like George Crawford and former Greater New Haven NAACP Pastor Edwin Edmonds, also served as members and leaders at the Dixwell church. For Gilford, Juneteenth is a way to honor those before him.

“We celebrate Juneteenth every day of the year,” Gilford said. ​“While it is a holiday that is on one particular day, it spills throughout the entire year.”

But with the remembrance, Granby urged members of the congregation not to forget the joy and hope in the midst of struggle.

“There is so much to celebrate. And so much to mourn,” Granby said. ​“I practically and spiritually cannot commit to a future with no hope. Why? Because children still have to be raised.”

This resonated with Deacon Roslyn Hamilton, who thought of her son who lives in West Haven. He had just celebrated Father’s Day, attending a cookout with his family. After the service ended, congregation members and YDS members alike shared greetings. As the piano played in the background, they hugged, laughed, then shared conversation downstairs in the basement over lemonade and cake. 

“You can’t have all suffering,” Hamilton said, with her eyes softening. ​“You have to mix in joy.”