Students lead Juneteenth march, seek change at their schools
LYNNWOOD — Hundreds of people carried signs and chanted “Black history is American history” as they joined in a Juneteenth march Friday from College Place Middle School to the Edmonds School District headquarters. Many also signed a list of measures they’re requesting of the district.
And as people across Snohomish County gathered to commemorate Juneteenth, a joint resolution passed by the county council and executive honored the date that America’s nearly 250 years of slavery came to an end.
The march was organized by Black student union groups from Mountlake Terrace, Edmonds-Woodway, Meadowdale and Lynnwood high schools.
Among the steps sought by those signing a message to the Edmonds district: Black representation on the school board and among all schools’ staff, removal of school resource officers, mandatory anti-racist training for staff, Black history across all curricula, and accountability for racism that happens in the district.
“The BSUs wanted to do something for Juneteenth — it’s completely student-led,” said Tribecca Brazil, a Black Student Union adviser and paraeducator at Mountlake Terrace High School.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved Black people in Texas received word of their freedom. More than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation — which said that all people held as slaves shall be “forever free” — news reached the far reaches of the U.S. frontier. Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger, backed by 2,000 Union troops, landed on Galveston Island that day 155 years ago and read the order proclaiming “all slaves are free.”
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