MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Omaha, Nebraska, celebrated Juneteenth even before President Biden declared it a national holiday, remembering when federal troops came to Galveston and told Texans that slavery was over. That was more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. But this is the first year that Nebraska's largest city will celebrate with a Black mayor. Here's Nebraska Public Media's Kassidy Arena.
KASSIDY ARENA, BYLINE: Volunteers are preparing historic 24th Street in Omaha, Nebraska, for this year's Juneteenth parade.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOWER CUTTING GRASS)
ARENA: Frankie Jean Williams is the chair of the Omaha NAACP Juneteenth Celebration Committee. She's looking forward to seeing the city's first elected Black mayor in the lineup.
FRANKIE JEAN WILLIAMS: It's a sense of pride. It's a wonderful opportunity to show young people the value of their vote.
ARENA: In May, Democrat John Ewing Jr. won the mayoral election of Nebraska's largest city, ousting the 12-year Republican incumbent. Williams wants Mayor Ewing to sit in a convertible for the parade, but she knows he'll probably want to walk.
F J WILLIAMS: Just to see him sitting there at that moment, I'm sure, for my generation, will bring some tears because you couldn't have told a lot of people that this would ever happen.
ARENA: Omaha NAACP President T. Michael Williams says this year's celebration is a, quote, "watershed moment."
T MICHAEL WILLIAMS: The state of Nebraska, the city of Omaha, honestly, has not always been kind to Black people. And I think it's a great opportunity for us as a city to move forward.
ARENA: Ewing is a former county treasurer in Nebraska. He's from North Omaha, an area with a large Black population. He says his election has reinvigorated Omaha's Juneteenth celebration, and he believes Omaha can set an example for the nation.
JOHN EWING JR: We can be like the rest of the country and have all of the fighting and all of the anger and have that be counterproductive, or we can look at how we can be great together.
ARENA: But some of that national tension has leaked into Omaha's celebration. Committee Chair Williams says some sponsors from previous years withdrew their support of the Juneteenth parade due to the Trump administration's rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
F J WILLIAMS: It wasn't surprising. It was a way out for them. They were doing something that they didn't want to do in the first place. It just shows true colors. And I definitely want people to know who pulled out, and I want people to know who stayed.
ARENA: Williams says this will be Omaha's largest parade in terms of participants, though, and she has no plans to stop growing. She says she can foresee a day when Juneteenth is no longer considered a federal holiday, and that would make her work even more poignant.
F J WILLIAMS: You can't take our history away from us, whether it's a holiday or not.
ARENA: The Trump administration has cracked down on DEI programs, saying they are illegal and discriminatory. June 19 was declared a federal holiday in 2021 under former President Joe Biden. But even before that designation, Omaha celebrated the day when the last enslaved African Americans in the South learned they were free, and organizers say they'll continue to do so, especially with the support from the new mayor. For NPR News, I'm Kassidy Arena in Omaha, Nebraska.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOAPELE SONG, "CLOSER") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.