Collegiate Times

The Juneteenth presentation held at the Historic Smithfield Plantation last Monday night began with a drumbeat as a silence fell over the 250 strong crowd.

Carol Dixon, the evening’s narrator, broke into chant. Seconds later many more voices joined in the chant and a choir combined of members from the Asbury United Methodist Church, St. Paul AME Church and the First Baptist Church of Blacksburg filed through the seated guests from behind and took their place at the front of the crowd.

Dixon told the history of slavery and the plantation with passion imbedded in her words and demonstrated in her spirited body language.

“Today we come to honour these men, women and children…standing in the shadows of Virginia Tech. The path to understanding requires that we talk about slavery,” she started.

Juneteenth is the day of June 18 in 1865. It marks the day that slaves in Texas were the last to hear of their freedom after the Civil War had ended. Guests gathered under the trees in front of the main house and engaged in song and prayer to pay homage to those African Americans subject to the indignities of the past, the number of guests attending surpassed original estimates by almost 100.

Some of the audience members have a history with the Smithfield Plantation that dates far back. Palmer Lee Price was a member of the audience and has lived in Blacksburg all his life.

“What brought me here tonight was a love of history, my ancestors were neighbours of the Prestons; they owned much of the land right next to these plantations,” he said.
Dixon asked the audience to imagine what it was like to be a slave and took members through a chronology of slavery starting in 1619 and ending in 1870 when the 15th amendment granted slaves their freedom.

She painted a picture of the Preston family who passed the plantation down for generations and highlighted their involvement with slavery.

The 20 or so strong choir who sat next to Nixon sang between the re-telling of the history, spirituals included: Go Down, Moses, Kum Ba Yah, Hold on and Steal Away.
The choir ranged from young to old and throughout the uplifting songs many of the members got the chance express themselves through compelling solos.

As Dixon brought the powerful presentation to a close, members of the choir read out the names of those slaves who worked at Smithfield.

The Rev. Glenn Orr delivered final statements, which included a local response to state resolution on slavery.

Terry Nicholson, administrative director at Historic Smithfield, was focused on the goals of the Juneteenth celebration.

“The history of slavery is often pushed to the background, the aim of the night is to tell the stories and how they fit in to Smithfield,” he said.

Rev. Glenn Orr, who closed the ceremony and encouraged more events of a similar nature, has hope for the future if people can learn from the past.

“There’s a lot going on in the community and to see this kind of response makes me believe that there’s a lot of good in the community,” he said. “History repeats itself and we need to stop dealing with difficult situations the same way.”