Year in review: North Fork Juneteenth parade and celebration

“When the drummers start drumming, they’re calling the people together,” the Rev. Natalie Wimberly said as she stood atop the steps at Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church in Greenport, swaying to the beat. Those drumbeats marked the official start of the North Fork’s first Juneteenth parade, which kicked off the village’s third annual celebration of the long-observed commemoration, but only recently minted national holiday.

The celebration continued at Clinton Memorial AME Zion Church on Third Street with a blessing, a sing-a-long to “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” a ceremonial reading of General Order No. 3 and a moving speech by the Rev. Wimberly.

Then the parade filled Greenport Village with marchers and cyclists from community organizations, including the  Center for Advocacy, Support and Transformation,  Greenport Fire Department, Coming to the Table, Friends of Floyd Memorial Library, First Universalist Church of Southold, Church of the Holy Trinity, Church of the Redeemer, North Fork Women, Oysterponds Historical Society and GEMO at Orient Yacht Club, among others.

After the parade, the group gathered in celebration at Mitchell Park, where officials spoke.

Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi said, “Today is all about community coming together, being at the table together” and pointed out,to ongoing applause, that 2024 marked the centennial of Greenport’s AME  church. 

Town Councilman Greg Doroski followed noting that, “Celebrations like this are important because it breathes life into these ideas [the unalienable rights of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness].”

“Words have power. Images have meaning. The children are watching and listening,” said Town Board member Anne Smith,representing Supervisor Al Krupski, as she addressed those  gathered in Mitchell Park. “They need us to nurture the seeds of hope planted today and in all the things we do together.”

Candace Hall, Greenport village clerk, took to the mic to shout out to her home town, Greenport, for showing up as well as to the organization Coming to the Table and Southold’s Anti-Bias Task Force for pulling the event together,  and to Clinton Memorial AME  Zion Church for being “a special place within the community.

Ms. Hall  quoted civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer — “Nobody’s free until we are all free” — and left the group with the challenge to share the conversation and what was learned with their networks and communities.

“It’s your responsibility as somebody who is here sharing the celebration to have challenging conversations with your friends and family. If you push through, that is where the change happens,” she encouraged. “We all have reach within ourselves.”

The celebration included music and dance performances and Greenport High School sophomore Faith Welch,who read a guest column she wrote for The Suffolk Times. It echoed the sentiment of religious officials from other local congregations, who spoke about acknowledging history on the North Fork, the contributions to it by African Americans and using the holiday as an opportunity to continue to move toward equity for all.

Pastor Milton Vann of Jefferson Temple Church of God in Christ in Cutchogue said, “Freedom still has some growing to do.”

Original reporting by Angela Colangelo.