Charlie Brown Supported Early Juneteenth Celebrations

By Susan Avera Holt

Columbia Historical Museum Board Member

June 19^th. Emancipation Day. Freedom Day.

Emancipation Day is officially Jan. 1, 1863, but slaves in Texas were unaware they were free until more than two years later on June 19, 1865. That’s when Union Gen. Gordon Granger and about 2,000 troops arrived in Galveston to establish the provisional Department of Texas. Their first task was telling 250,000 Texas slaves that they were free. Black Texans were some of the last of the 4 million African Americans to be formally notified of their freedom.

Celebrations began immediately upon hearing the news, and the following year, Juneteenth was commemorated joyously.

“Freedmen and their families gathered in rural communities and burgeoning freedom colonies to rejoice with parades, dances, church services, hallelujahs, community feasts and tears. In East Texas’ Anderson County, freedmen created fireworks by drilling holes in trees and filling them with gunpowder,” according to Michael Hurd in his June 2020 Texas Highways story.

In West Columbia, Charles “Charlie” Brown helped start the first Juneteenth celebration in Brazoria County, said descendant Stephanie Brown. (Forbes.com. Accessed July 15, 2021)

“It’s cool to know my grandfather was one of the people who initiated the first Juneteenth,” she said. Stephanie Brown grew up in Brazoria County and moved to Richmond, Virginia, when she was 16. There she learned that Juneteenth wasn’t celebrated outside of Texas. So, she took her old photos, oral traditions and memories and began educating anyone who would listen about how her great, great, great, great grandfather, Charlie Brown, helped start the tradition of commemorating the day slaves in Texas learned they were free.

In her May/June 2007 Image Magazine article, Teena Maenza quoted Cora Faye Williams as saying that Charlie Brown wanted to ensure that Black people never forgot the struggles of their ancestors.

“He was the first to celebrate Juneteenth,” Williams said. “Charlie Brown gathered all the people together to organize this big celebration. People came from Houston and other surrounding counties by train or horse drawn buggies. He brought musicians in from Houston to perform. Most children could not attend, and I was too young to go. I do remember festivities would start on a Friday and go through the weekend. No one else was having celebrations on this date.

Williams also remembered Juneteenth celebrations where Charlie “would have a brass band. They would come by train to East Columbia, and he would send a wagon out to pick them up. We would have picnics.”

Williams also said that Brown made his descendants promise to remember the importance of June 19.

That memory is echoed in a story written by Minister Eric D. Brown. “The Juneteenth family reunion is arguably the longest running in Texas. This was a very important date to Charlie Brown. In his words, “Never forget. Never return to that slave mentality. (The Epistle of 1997, Vol. 1, No. 2, Charlie Brown: Profile of a Texas Trailblazer)

Rev. Brown also said, “He had his children promise to never allow the date of June 19^th to pass without a great celebration in the honor of slaves being freed. Even if they had to supply the food themselves.”

The importance of remembering Juneteenth spread far beyond Brazoria County.

In 1979, state Rep. Al Edwards of Houston pushed the state to recognize Emancipation Day as an official state holiday and saw that accomplished the following year. A statue has been erected in Galveston to commemorate his accomplishment. Juneteenth Historical Marker

Finally, 21 years later, Juneteenth has spread nationwide. In 2021, President Joseph R. Biden signed into law the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, creating the first federal holiday approved since Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983. Since the holiday falls on a Sunday this year, federal workers will have a paid day off on Monday, June 20.