 US self-development and respect for all cultures. And now, thanks to the efforts of Fort Worth's Opal Lee, Juneteenth is a federal holiday that celebrates the anniversary date of June 19th, 1865, when the announcement of General Order Number Three was made by the Union Army General Gordon Granger proclaiming freedom for the enslaved people in Texas. For the last three months, I have had the great privilege of working with the employee work group that planned today's program, which will feature a presentation on the history of the Port Sullivan Plantation Home, also known as the Foster House at the Log Cabin Village, as well as an original theatrical presentation that you are sure to enjoy. Before we begin our program, though, we have a few remarks from our Chief Equity Officer and Director of the Diversity and Inclusion Department. Do please help me welcome Ms. Brooks to the microphone. Good afternoon, you all know I'm short, so just know I'm back here. I want to share some remarks with you this afternoon and really begin with a question, a question around Juneteenth and its legacy. Is the United States of America an experiment, a love story, or something else? To think deeply about this question, let's consider words written and spoken and actions following June 19th, 1865. The Reconstruction Amendments, also known as the Civil War Amendments, are the 13th, the 14th, and the 15th. Amendments to the United States Constitution that were adopted between 1865 and 1870, the five years immediately following the Civil War. The last time the Constitution had been amended was the 12th Amendment, more than 60 years earlier in 1804. The Reconstruction Amendments were important in implementing the Reconstruction of the American South after the war. Their proponents saw them as transforming the United States from a country that was, in Abraham Lincoln's words, half slave, half free, to one in which the constitutionally guaranteed blessings of liberty would be extended to the entire populace, including former slaves and their descendants. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except for those duly convicted of a crime. The 13th Amendment was proposed by Congress on January 31st, 1865, when it passed the House, previously passed the Senate on April 8th, 1864. It appears officially in 13 statute 567, under the date of February 1st, 1865. The ratification was completed on December 6th, 1865. When the legislature of the 27th state, Georgia, approved the amendment, there being then 36 states in the Union. On December 18th, 1865, the Secretary of State certified that the 13th Amendment had become part of the Constitution. The Texas legislature ratified the 13th Amendment, February 17th, 1870. The 14th Amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws for all persons. It was proposed by Congress June 13th, 1866, when it passed the House, having previously passed the Senate on June 8th, it appears officially in 14 statute 358, under the date of June 16th, 1866. The Texas legislature ratified the 14th Amendment, February 18th, 1870, after having rejected the amendment on October 27th, 1866. The 15th Amendment prohibits discrimination and voting rights of citizens on the basis of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. All races, regardless of their prior slavery, could vote in some states of the early United States, such as New Jersey, provided that they could meet other requirements, such as property ownership. The 15th Amendment was proposed by Congress on February 26th, 1869, when it passed the Senate, having previously passed the House on February 25th. It appears officially in 15 statute 346, under the date of February 27th, 1869. The Texas legislature ratified the 15th Amendment, February 18th, 1870. These amendments were intended to guarantee freedom to former slaves and to establish and prevent discrimination of certain civil rights to former slaves and all citizens of the United States. The promise of these amendments was eroded by state laws and federal court decisions throughout the late 19th century. In 1876 and beyond, some states passed Jim Crow laws that limited the rights of African Americans. Important Supreme Court decisions that undermine these amendments were the Slaughterhouse cases in 1873, which prevented rights guaranteed under the 14th Amendment privileges and immunities clause from being extended to rights under state law. And Plessy versus Ferguson in 1896, which originated the phrase, quote, separate but equal, and gave federal approval to Jim Crow laws. The full benefits of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments were not recognized until the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 and laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The United States of America is often referred to as an experiment in democracy, the delicate balance between freedom and rule of law, dignity for all, or only for those deemed worthy of it. Today, Juneteenth recognizes the speed and power of words. The message of federal emancipation finally making its way to the remaining men, women, and children deemed slaves or chattel assets in states engaged in rebellion against the Union, still bound in Texas. News that had been announced by President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War on September 22, 1862, made effective January 1, 1863, finally meeting the last subjugated subjugated remnants, June 19, 1865. So are we, the United States of America, an experiment or a love story or something else? Maintaining freedom, basic human and civil rights requires constant cultivation, tender correction and guidance, and words written and spoken, supported by our everyday actions. America, American democracy can simply be a human love story, one that is tended by all who love her as she is, while still maintaining a fearless expectation of continuous evolution toward better. Our words and actions will ultimately be our answer. Thank you. Now I want to introduce our city leadership. We have been joined by two of our assistant city managers. The first who will speak for us is Valerie Washington. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be able to provide just a warm welcome for everyone that took time to be here today. Thanks, Christina, to your team and the employee committee to put this together. I had some remarks prepared, Christina, but I think I might change just a little bit. I mean, I think some of the words that you said really inspired me, especially as we look at the time. I agree, Juneteenth is a reason to celebrate, but there's just that little piece of it when you talk about it that just makes me a little sad. And it's hard to not acknowledge that. I think in this past year, I don't know if anyone in the room has had a chance to visit the African American History Museum in D.C. Have anyone been there? Because if you've been there, I mean, it's pretty powerful. And it really, when you see the way that African Americans had to live being enslaved, we weren't allowed to have families. We were constantly moved. There was no stability. You really start to wonder, how do you build back from that, right, from the institution of slavery where, again, we didn't have the rights to even hold our families together? I'm so proud of Opal Lee and being able to celebrate Juneteenth. And I guess I always see it as a reminder to remember how we've gotten here. It doesn't seem that long ago when I was learning about African American history in school that, you know, the history was only about slavery. And so it's really, really nice to see that change, that we look at African American leaders and contributors. And I love to see that growth. We just need so much more of that as we continue to celebrate. So I hope as we celebrate Juneteenth this year, really think back and think about the dynamics of African Americans through history and some of the things, you know, that it does take more than maybe a couple of hundred years to recover from, right, as we're looking at different dynamics. So I really appreciate being here today and being able to celebrate Juneteenth. And I will turn it over to my colleague Dana Bergdorf. Thank you. Thank you, Val. Thank you, everyone. I will read some of the prepared remarks and then have some additional ones to add as well. So today we do come together to acknowledge the importance of Juneteenth. But as Val mentioned and alluded to, there's still work that lies ahead for us. As a workplace, the city does believe in fostering an inclusive and diverse environment where every individual is valued and respected. Juneteenth provides us with an occasion to deepen our understanding of the struggles faced by African Americans throughout history and to appreciate their resilience, creativity, and cultural richness, as well as contributions to our organization. So I want to thank you all for being here today. And I hope that this event and the day that we'll spend together, hopefully we'll see you on the Opal Lee Walk on Monday the 19th, that it'll serve as a catalyst for deeper connections, increased awareness, and meaningful action. And then I also just want to share, just as a side note, the pride that I have in diversity and inclusion department and our park and recreation department and others who came together to not only put this event together but also to bring to Fort Worth, to one of our parks, the first two stopping stones to recognize people who lived here, who were enslaved in one of the log cabins that's at our log cabin village. And so I actually get a little bit emotional about it thinking about that. So honoring Molly and Jefferson Walton who lived here, who were brought here. I think originally, in some cases from Alabama and even other states, and that speaks to that not being able to be settled and to have families. But we're brought here. So really looking, I hope you look forward to what you'll be able to learn today. We did get to see the performance this past Saturday at log cabin village. We got to see the stopping stones and they will be installed within within this next week. So I encourage you all, if you haven't been there since maybe elementary school, out to log cabin village, come on back. Go see the stopping stones. They'll be very prominent and hopefully help to enrich the the conversation that we that we need to have here in Fort Worth. So thank you all so much. Appreciate it. Thank you for those remarks. Now let's welcome Shayna Voie, the assistant historic site supervisor for the log cabin village. I'm going to stand to the side here because you will not see me. So thank you all so much for being here today. And thank you for the kind words about log cabin village and our stopping stones event. We're actually going to go into that a little bit. So that was the most beautiful setup I could hope for. So thank you so much. Let's get started. So as Jared said, my name is Shayna Voie and I am the assistant historic site supervisor at log cabin village. So for those of you who haven't been there, one, we are part of the city. So we're all co workers. Hello, y'all. We are just down university drive just right across from the zoo. So just a little bit about us to kind of give you a little like mindset of where we're coming from. We are a city owned and operated living history museum. So what that means is we have the people, excuse me, in 19th century clothing. I am at a collection of, you guessed it, log cabins to demonstrate historic lifeways and skills like candle dipping, blacksmithing, woodworking, spinning and weaving, all of those things that you think when you think like things like Little House on the Prairie. But they also are great at telling you about the lives of all of our collective ancestors. So we hope that you'll come out and visit. We were open to the public in 1966 and we are dedicated to the preservation of 19th century folk architecture and frontier lifeways. So we are a collection of log cabins from different places in north and central Texas. So there is one from Tarrant County, which is the Parker Cabin, which was up near Birdville. But the rest are from other places in Texas. And so they were all gathered here really as different types of architecture. Don't worry about that today. That's not what we're talking about. People are like, I'm not here for an architecture talk. Don't worry, I'm not giving one. It's still very interesting. But so you have to come to the village for that. So today we are specifically going to zoom in on what happened in and around the Port Sullivan Plantation Home. So I am, for those of you who aren't aware, Port Sullivan is in kind of south-ish, not south-south Texas, but it's in Mylam County. It is now ghost town. So it's near what is today Cameron. So for those of you who kind of have that map of Texas in your head, this is where this home originally stood. It was in the 1960s when the photograph here on the slide was taken. It was one of the only surviving plantation style homes in Texas. And it is one of the largest log homes dating back to the mid-19th century. So it was added to the village so it was moved from Mylam County up to Fort Worth in 1974. And it currently serves as our main entrance, our museum store, and our offices. So the home was owned and lived in by the foster family. And the foster family, let me tell you, we've got a ton of information about them. They show up in census records. We have letters. We have photos. We have a ton of stuff about them. However, we don't know as much about the people who they enslaved and who made their plantation work because without enslaved labor, the plantation system doesn't work. And so they had moved. The foster family, along with their enslaved workers, had moved from Mississippi to Port Sullivan in around 1852. The home that is now the village entrance was built by enslaved labor. You can see the ax marks in the wood of when this house was put together. And the craftsmanship on it is incredible. The notching on the side, see, I told you I'd get a little bit architecture in there. So, again, we don't know a whole lot about those who were enslaved in this home. However, we do have some little clues that as we put on our historian detective hats that we can follow. Yes, thank you, Jared. So one of the things we know is, okay, so a starting piece of information, we have this slave schedule. So for those of you who don't spend all your time in archives and researching, a slave schedule was basically an accounting of slave ownership by enslavers. And so they would list, in this we have their ages, whether they were men or women. And that's about it. That's what we have. So from the slave schedule, looking at the foster entry here, we know that in 1860, 16 enslaved individuals ranging in age from six months to 55 years old were enslaved here. At that time, 10 women and six men lived and worked around the Port Sullivan Plantation Home that now sits at Log Cabin Village. And this slave schedule does not contain the names of any of those individuals, as you can see here. Some of them do. This one doesn't. But even though we don't have the names here, we do have a couple names that we can start working from. So these two photos gave us our first clues. Because any good historian, you start with a question and you find the evidence to answer that question. So for the historians at Log Cabin Village, Rina Lawrence, right there, our site supervisor and before her, Kelly Picard, who you all know and love. And now myself, we have these two photographs. And the back of each photograph provided the information of where we wanted to start search for the answers of who were these individuals, what were their lives like. We want to know what was their experience in the Port Sullivan Plantation Home. So as you can see up there, we have two. It's Jefferson Walton and Molly, maybe we'll get to that. But we will start with Jefferson Walton. So we have a couple clues. On the back of the photograph is a handwritten note. And we know, based on handwriting, that the notes here were written by two different people. Because obviously this handwriting is not the same. So from what we can gather from this little bit of information, we know that Jefferson Walton was married to a woman named Fanny. He came to Texas from Mississippi while enslaved by the foster family. And then the second note in the second handwriting references an 1870 census that provides the names and ages of Mr. and Mrs. Walton's children. So these are our clues that we have to start with. So from there, Rina found a ton of evidence to put together a life story. So she delved. Oh, you guys would probably like that slide too. So she found an incredible amount of evidence. And you'll see just part of it compiled here. Ancestry is a great thing, y'all. She was able to piece together this documented history of Mr. Walton's life from 1834 when he was born to 1926 when he passed away. And so from on this chart, I know it's a really small writing. If anybody is interested in this information, send me an email. I'd be happy to share. We're always happy to share information. But she put all of this together a family tree based on census records, other family trees that other people have worked on, voter rolls, grave indexes and more. And so while we're not going to go over every single piece of evidence here, as interesting as I promise it is, we are going to zoom in on a couple of these documents really closely. So the first is a voter roll. So, you know, voter rolls have been in the news. So we know we still do this, right? We have rolls of people who are registered to vote. And in this, Ms. Brooks, you set me up so well for this by giving us the crash course in reconstruction history. And so that is also very much appreciated. Because sometimes history can start to seem really abstract, right? A lot of people are like, I don't like history. It's just a bunch of names and dates. It can be until you start doing a little bit more digging and really think about what those names and dates mean. So, for example, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 required Southern states to ratify the 14th Amendment, which Ms. Brooks explained to us, draft new state constitutions and register voters of both black and white to vote in state constitutional conventions. So in order to vote, men had to swear an oath of allegiance to the United States, and some were disqualified flat out for their participation in Confederate governments during the Civil War. So these voter rolls came directly out of the Reconstruction Acts that were passed. And these records list the names of more than 139,000 men, age 21 and over, who were registered to vote between 1867 and 1869. This would be the first time that many of these men and African-American men would be given the right to vote. And the records are of particular importance to African-American research because they include the names of former slaves who we now have documentation for. We now have a name to go back into the records and go forward in time to see what happened to these individuals. Because it's really hard to follow a number through time, but you can follow a name. You can follow an individual in their story. So here on this voter roll, the highlighted bit, you can see Jefferson Walton listed as a voter. So can you imagine what that must have felt like after 31 years of slavery to have your name on a voter roll? And just seeing that this is probably one of my absolute favorite things that Rina found, because it shows that these laws and acts that we're forced to, you know, try to remember in high school for a U.S. history test that they mattered. And that they mattered for these individuals like Jefferson Walton. One of the other things we have is Mr. Walton's death certificate and death certificates. Oh, my gosh, I'd love to find a good death certificate, guys. Like, do you know how much information we write down when people die? It's amazing. So, for instance, just from this death certificate, we, besides his death date in 1926, we also find out his father's name was Peter. I didn't find that anywhere else, but I found it here, or not I, Rina. We kind of mold into one person sometimes. We find out that Fanny passed away before him because he's listed as being widowed. We know that he was buried in Branchville, Texas, which wasn't very far, isn't very far from Port Sullivan. So it was just a few miles northwest of Port Sullivan. And so we know that after emancipation, he probably stayed in that area. So we have all this information. Okay, so we have all this information, which is awesome, but now what do we do with it? Do we just like stick it in a drawer and say, well, that was cool? No. Rina and I are public historians, and so that means that we are ready to share this information with the public. And so this is a Facebook post that was that Rina created in 2021, really synthesizing and pulling all that information together, all of these documents to say here was a life and here was a life that mattered. Now we move on to Molly. Oh, Molly. Molly and I have been very close over these last couple months. Because just like Mr. Walton, we have clues. We have a handwritten note on the back of this photograph. Awesome. Great. And so she's referred to only as Molly on the back of this photo. So some of the details that we can get from this. She was, this photo was taken in Fort Worth at 1813 Western. She was enslaved by Martha Ann and of Harry Foster. She came to Texas with them when she was 16 years old. She stayed with the family after the Civil War. And then she cared for four generations of foster children. And it's also noted that she died at the age of 101 in 1934. 101. I mean, can we just applaud that? Way to go, Molly. That's amazing. So I was so excited to see all this information. I'm like, this is so good. This is all the pieces I'm going to need. We are going to find her last name. So when we install these stopping stones, we will have a first and last name for this woman who has only been referred to as Molly, and it's going to be so good. Or not. Because as I start following in Rina's footsteps and going into census records, there's no Molly, y'all. There's no Molly in the census records. So I was like, okay, that's okay. Maybe Molly was short for something. Maybe Mary, Margaret, Martha, Martina, Melinda, anything. And it's a dead end. Because there's no woman named Molly or Margaret or Mary or Martha who shows up anywhere that she should be based on the information we have on the back of that photograph. Nothing quite lined up. It was either, oh, they were born too late. No, this person was born in Alabama and they died in the 1910s. And so you can see there, like all of these notes as I'm trying to find people, I'm like, okay, maybe this one and I'll follow that rabbit home. Like, nope, this is a different woman. I really hate dead ends like this, y'all. So the next couple months, I kept at it. I'm like, there's got to be something somewhere we have to find this woman. We got a breakthrough when I was looking at cemetery records. So I was like, all right, well, I know that she was probably buried near Port Sullivan. So let's start looking. And originally, I was looking again for names like Molly, Martha, Mary, and none of those are lining up. But then the dates on this entry catch my eye and they fit exactly. And this woman's name was Betsy Rhine Johnson. And everything starts to line up. It's the dates. It's where she was. It's the family. It's she was in Fort Worth at the right time. And so I start looking and we compiled these census records. And we've got her in 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930. In every single one, she's consistently where the photograph said she would be. And from this, we learned she had a husband named Henry. And they married in 1868. They had at least seven children. And some of those children did move to Fort Worth in the 1920s. Once again, we have a death certificate. And from this death certificate, we learned that Henry died before she did because she's listed as a widow. Her father's name was Frank. Frank Rhine. She was born in Mississippi. And the information about her life on this death certificate was provided by a woman named Susan Young, who was her daughter who she lived with based on the census records from 1920. It also notes that she was a housekeeper for 88 years. Yeah, you lived to be 101 and you worked for 88 of those years. She last worked as a housekeeper in 1914. So what are some of the conclusions that we can draw from this? Are we 100% sure that Betsy Rine Johnson is the woman in this photograph that they're one and the same? No. Because there's no photographs of Betsy found. I've been trying to look in family trees to see if any of those descendants like, do you have a photograph of this woman? And so far nothing. Maybe Molly was a nickname. Did somebody misremember? We're not really sure. And so historians, you know, we really like some airtight evidence. So I cannot tell you like, this woman is actually Betsy Rine Johnson. But I can make a really educated guess that they're probably one and the same. So now what? Again, do we just say, well, that was a really cool little historical jaunt we took. And so now we're going to have it in our archives. And if anybody's interested, they can do research, but no. It's not really our style at Log Cabin Village. And so as was mentioned earlier, we installed two stopping or we dedicated two stopping stones this weekend. So stopping stones are created by an artist in Vermont, Paul Grohwald, who went to Europe. And while he was there, saw that they have stumbling stones, which are dedicated to remembering those we lost in the Holocaust. And so he came back to the United States. He's like, I really want something like that. I want it here in the US, but I want it for enslaved individuals because we know some names and we need to tell those stories. And so he hand stamps all of these brass plaques with the names, professions, enslavement dates of people across the United States. As mentioned, we are the first site in Texas to have these. So far, all of the other stopping stones have been in the northern states because Paul thought, you know what, nobody thinks of slavery being integral to the north as well. And so he very, very, yes, strategically, thank you, strategically started the project there. So we are honored to be some of the first here in Texas. And so these two stones will be installed right in front of the Port Sullivan Plantation Home to acknowledge the uncompensated work and the lives of Molly and Jefferson Walton. So we had a wonderful dedication ceremony on Saturday. So JR Bradford and Kenya Brown were there as Mr. Walton and Molly and did a fabulous job. Like, you guys are about to see them and they're going to blow you away. I promise they're incredible. And we also had Sheran Goodspeed, Keaton Singh. We had some amazing speakers and we really took it as a moment to honor and acknowledge those ancestors who came before us. And so we really hope that you will come out to La Cabin Village and you'll see the stopping stones once they are installed and that now having seen this presentation that you know that these were full complicated lives and they mattered. So thank you guys so much and enjoy the rest of the presentation. Thank you, Shay, for sharing your research and insight. Now it's time to welcome Sheran Goodspeed, Keaton to introduce next portion of our program. Sheran is an actor, sender, writer, director and producer who has been performing professionally for more than 30 years. This forward native has toured nationally and internationally for the past 16 years and in 2008 formed her own non-profit theater company DVA Productions where she has produced more than 50 live theater productions. Concerts, events, including the theatrical production, we are about to see, which was commissioned by the La Cabin Village. My name is Sarah. I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas and I've lived here most of my life. I'm so very happy to be here with you all today telling this story and celebrating this holiday and I wanted to tell you a little bit about my life as a little girl in Texas. See when I was a little girl I remember being in the third grade and taking a field trip to the La Cabin Village and we walked around the La Cabin Village and we saw all of these old houses and all of these things that looked like something that came straight out of the movie that I had just seen, Roots, you know the one and I looked at all of those things and I thought wow and then I started because I was a very curious little girl. When I was a little girl I started looking at all of the captions and all of the writings and all of the pictures and I kept looking and looking and looking and looking and looking. I didn't see anybody that looked like me and I thought well shoot if they were all here where the heck was I? So I started talking to my mama and I started getting real interested in oh what do you call it gynecology? No. Um, no. What's the one where you go and find out who you are and where you come from? Genealogy. Y'all I'm so sorry I get nervous when I get up in front of a lot of folks. Genealogy I started looking for genealogy to find out who I was and where I'd come from and so we started doing this family tree and I went back and back and I was like oh those are all of my aunties and I was like oh there's my mama and my daddy and my grandmama and I was like mama well what about this one and she said I don't know. She didn't know only three generations back where some people were buried, where they had lived, where they had died, what they had gone through, what they had done and as a third grader who was very very very very smart I knew that something was wrong about that so as I got older I started coming a little bit more and a little bit more to the log cabin village and other places as such because I wanted to know who I am, where I come from, where my name comes from. Well I started creating this little book and I found some stories and then I met these two amazing ladies, them ladies right over there, hey y'all and it was so crazy because they were telling me the stories about this Miss Molly and Jefferson Walton and so I started writing and I would go to sleep at night holding this book with all my notes because I wanted to learn everything that I could and I read everything that I found from them and I started to thinking about them more and more so much so that it's like they started living inside of my head it was like I could I could see them I could hear them I could only imagine what they went through what their lives were like I still carry them around with me sometimes I'm just minding my own business sitting there minding my own business and they're there they're speaking I'm listening it's like hearing from the ancestors just earlier today I heard from Molly she said a little something like this as Molly, folk around here calls me Aunt Molly now when the good people's hear the law cabin village tells me I was coming all the way here to the year what the year is two thousand and twenty three and it's all kinds of feelings that's it because you see here I was coming home to this here place this here is the foster house and this where I live most my life and tell you a little story when I was just 16 years old I left my birth home in the Mississippi and I travels in a covered wagon with Miss Harry and Miss Martha and Foster and we travels a many sunrises and sunsets till we got on down to the port Sullivan Texas over in the Mylum County area they tell me well as I sit in that back corner that they're covered wagon I think it's about my life I think who I is what I was going to do who I was going to be I was scared I was curious because you see them there be the only white folk I ever be with but I was ready to get on the Texas so I can see we travels to many many places I can't remember much of them but I show remember that they're all cans off did you know that Miss Maya Angelou is from all cans off well she come along way on after I did and going on to be with the good lord heard that she wrote some good stuff now even though I never learned how to read or write I remember was pretty good and they tells me that they're one cold woman's work it tells it like it be and I tries to see the beauty and God all inside of I got the cheering its hand the clothes to men the floor to mop the food to shop the chicken to fry the baby to dry the company to feed the garden to weed then the shirts to press in the tots to dress the can to be cut I got to clean up this hut then see about the sick and the cotton to pick oh miss sunshine rain on me rain fall softly dew drops and cruise my bragging blow me from here with your fears of wind let me float across the sky till I can rest again fall softless snowflakes and cover me with your white cold eyes say kisses then let me rest sun mountains ocean leaves I can call good right right there see now listen I was born in 1833 and I spent my whole life caring for the generations of children in this year foster house so it ain't set quite well with me when I hear how folks think of me like us just a servant with no name as molding just a servant in this year house I care for the cheering I care for the sick I do the cooking and the cleaning I nurse the youngins when missus too tired from her day I do the washing and the sorting and the folding I takes care this here house year after year and I still takes time to care for my own family that right there that right there that's what your cola woman's work so imagine how I must have felt when the good people's at the law cabin village tells me they're bringing me here here they said they're bringing me here because they got that they're stopping stone I ain't never heard of such a thing but they tell me that it's gonna be planned for generations to come and they gonna know my name most by art that they're poem amidst my angelo says the stars and is all that I can call small singing and I realized if all those years that's the song my mama was humming when all the things in the world were going wrong and I didn't even know anything was wrong because she always made sure to make sure that me and my sister were allowed to just be kids when we were kids but I was here in that back room and I thought my mom was sure so I thought she was rehearsing for something that I might never get to see because I never saw do it in front of nobody just in that back room I started asking her more and more about the people and the places and the things that I wanted to know about not just my family but everybody I started to go into that google thing again and all of a sudden the story started to come into life for me even more all of a sudden stories like like this one event that Jefferson Walton it wasn't exactly him but it was one just like it so I was excited when I got to the law cabin village folks hey y'all and they had stopping stone right there his story everything about him made me kind of happy I think he showed up here today too. Good day to y'all my name is Jefferson Walton and I'm mighty grateful for the good folks at the law cabin village bring me up where I come from is Arthur Bryant you know the Kansas City, Missouri uh barbecue brother yeah he come from Branchville just the same he made his way to Missouri where another famous fellow you might have heard of James Mercer Langston Hughes the poet he wrote about lots of things he wrote about the planet of Negro one poem that he wrote that seemed to be my voice so what I would say to somebody who listen I too am America I'm the darker brother they send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes but I laugh and eat well and grow strong tomorrow I'll be at the table when company comes nobody or dare say to me eating the kitchen then besides there'll be a shame and see how beautiful I am I too am America I was born in 1834 Hal County Alabama at a time when America ain't think I was beautiful or a man at all but oh I tell you Fannie Wood of Holland showing up thought I was beautiful so much so she agreed to marry me in 1860 she gave me 13 childrens in 66 years of love that no man could ever take away from it we started the family right away let's see first come James, Jeffrey, Walter, Fannie, William, Lulu, Mary, David, Bethenia, Walton, Ivory, Addie, Ozzie, who Lord I believe I can still recall all their names Lord knows I called them all kinds of things when they was growing up but it means something that you good folks get to hear their names after all these years you know when folks see a photograph from it all they see is an enslaved man that's all but I was a laborer I was a farmer I can get out and work that rich Texas saw like eyes of magic plants that healed our bodies food that made us strong and cotton for our clothes and fabrics for the houses I couldn't even live in but I did all those things as I was a farmer and I's got a name so imagine how happy I was when the good folks at the law cabin village bring me all the way to what years again what is 23 oh good lord 2023 they bring me here because they got what they call a stopping stone I ain't never heard of such a thing but they say it's going to be planted right here for generations to come planted like the crops I used to grow and everybody that comes through here will see my name Jefferson Walton I guess that poet fellow went wrong after all they will see how beautiful I am I too am America so you see ladies and gentlemen after all these years my curiosity paid off I was able to truly find out from whence I come still a lot of work to do I can't do it all by myself I got some good folks all around the city who that's what they do they work hard to make sure that my kids and their kids and their kids and their kids and all the generations to come never have to wonder about who they are and from whence they come they make sure that when they create their family tree when they put it all on paper and they stand there there's a face in that picture there's a name beneath that picture I want to encourage all of you to do the same don't stop working to help to make sure that we always know from whence we come this little light of mine this little light thank you for such an informative and inspiring presentation let's give them one last round of applause so they can hear it in the back I know many of us are familiar with the large cabin village here today but I certainly hope we all learned something that we didn't know before I know I sure did this brings us to the end of our program today but before we sign off I want to thank all of the employees who have worked so hard to make this program happen today I want to also thank our audience here today for making the time to be here with us today it means the world to us lastly I'd also like thank you all on behalf of the diversity and inclusion employee committee I wish to thank the city leadership for their support of not only this program but also all of the efforts by our committee to promote a greater understanding and appreciation for diversity and inclusiveness throughout the city's workforce I also want to mention a couple of other Juneteenth activities that are occurring in the community this evening is 7 p.m. at the IM Terrell Academy for STEM and VPA the national Juneteenth speaker series will feature Brian Stevenson founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative and the author of the award-winning nationally acclaimed memoir Just Mercy which was also the basis for a biographical legal drama film of the same name and the big Juneteenth holiday this coming Monday is Opal Lee's Walk for Freedom the walk will be in at 10 45 in the morning in the Evans Rosedale Plaza and we once more thank you all for attending and have