[SPEAKER_05]: Hello, everyone.
[SPEAKER_05]: So here we are, once again, nearing the summer solstice.
[SPEAKER_05]: And today, the day this episode comes up is June Tint, which, as you know, is a national holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States.
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you'll be familiar with this episode.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a conversation we had five years ago now.
[SPEAKER_05]: with our friend and neighbor Tony Cohen, the renowned author and historian who's dedicated to preserving the legacy of the underground railroad.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tony has not only studied and written about this pivotal moment in American history, but he has, in fact, walked the entire route from the U.S. into Canada numerous times.
[SPEAKER_05]: And is, as we speak, undertaking another walk with freedom walk 2026.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, which is why this year, I'm giving you this little intro to the intro of this most often repeated episode.
[SPEAKER_05]: We think this subject matter is important enough to repeat year after year, because it gives all of us a deeper understanding of the background and events leading up to emancipation and emancipation day, what is now known as Juneteenth, and its significance in our history as a nation.
[SPEAKER_05]: which began last month in Maryland on May 4th, and we'll go through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and we'll conclude in Ontario, Canada on July 4th, the 25th anniversary of America's independence.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'd like to read this statement directly from the website about the mission of this journey.
[SPEAKER_05]: Freedom Walk, 2026, envisions a nation where America's unfinished story is completed to form a more just and perfect union, unining past and present.
[SPEAKER_05]: We seek to reignite the ideals of a way the people, sparking inspiration for future generations to secure equity, justice, and liberation for all.
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that just about says everything.
[SPEAKER_05]: If you want to find out more about Freedom Walk, 2026, to follow along.
[SPEAKER_05]: And how you can support it or even participate, you can go to the website of Tony's nonprofit organization, the Menare Foundation, Menare.org, Freedom Walk 2026.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's m-e-n-a-r-e.org slash Freedom Walk 2026.
[SPEAKER_05]: And thank you, everyone, for being here.
[SPEAKER_00]: freedom wasn't necessarily a locational thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't necessarily like Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't terraforming.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't have to necessarily get to a particular geographic location.
[SPEAKER_00]: Freedom was something within.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the ability to chart one's own course and to enjoy the fruits of one's own labor.
[SPEAKER_04]: You're listening to the good dirt podcast.
[SPEAKER_04]: This is a place where we dig into the nitty-gritty of sustainable living through food, fashion, and lifestyle.
[SPEAKER_05]: And we're your host, Mary and Emma Kingsley, the mother and daughter founder team of Lady Farmer.
[SPEAKER_05]: We're sewing seeds of slow living through our community platform events and online marketplace.
[SPEAKER_04]: We started this podcast as a means to share the wealth of information and quality conversations that we're having in our world as we dream up and deliver ways for each of us to live into the new paradigm, one that is regenerative, balanced, and whole.
[SPEAKER_05]: We want to put the microphone in front of the voices that need to be heard the most right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: The farmers, the dreamers, the designers, and the doers.
[SPEAKER_05]: So come call to be a better world with us.
[SPEAKER_04]: We're so glad you're here.
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, let's dig in.
[SPEAKER_04]: Good morning and happy summer solstice.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's just me today to introduce our special guest for this special bonus episode.
[SPEAKER_04]: If you're a good dirt listener, you know that we drop episodes every Friday, but we are dropping a special episode today Saturday, June 19th, an honor of Juneteenth or emancipation day.
[SPEAKER_04]: We had such an amazing conversation with our friend Tony back in February.
[SPEAKER_04]: That episode is called Preserving the History of the Underground Railroad with Tony Cohen.
[SPEAKER_04]: I recommend if you haven't listened to it, definitely go back and give it a listen.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we invited him back to tell us all about Juneteenth and to give us some of history and context around emancipation and what that means.
[SPEAKER_04]: And if you haven't met Tony yet, he's a historian, non-profit founder and an author.
[SPEAKER_04]: who operates button farm, Maryland's only living history center depicting 19th century slave plantation life and the heroic story of the underground railroad.
[SPEAKER_04]: He is the founder and director of the Menarei Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to the creation of cutting edge educational programs including an underground railroad immersion experience based on the work he did with Oprah Winfrey.
[SPEAKER_04]: So we hope you enjoy this episode and learn a lot we definitely did and celebrate in this joyous day.
[SPEAKER_04]: Happy summer, everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Juneteenth is a celebration of emancipation of enslaved people in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a nationwide holiday that got its origins in Texas, you know, the past century and a half to really capture the imagination of Americans.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Juneteenth, because it marks the day, June 19th, 1865, where enslaved people in Galveston, Texas were told that they had been free.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in true folkloric,
[SPEAKER_00]: African-American style instead of saying, hey, let's celebrate the 19th day of June 1865.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, came up with Juneteenth as a as a short hand for something that was pretty big, pretty big in the experience.
[SPEAKER_04]: and just to clarify for some people may not know for my understanding from history class slaves were emancipated much earlier than June 19, 1865 correct so why is that the date that we celebrate?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, and I have to say I would still, I would still argue that the definitive book on a emancipation has yet to be written.
[SPEAKER_00]: But most people know from a school up bringing about Lincoln's
[SPEAKER_00]: In the emancipation, proclamation, President Lincoln basically freed the enslaved people who are held in bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Confederate States.
[SPEAKER_00]: The only rub with that was Lincoln didn't have control over the Confederate States.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so historians say that even though it was a powerful and symbolic act that it did not free a single enslaved person.
[SPEAKER_00]: After the emancipation, a proclamation was issued, it did however have an immediate effect.
[SPEAKER_00]: Slaveholders throughout the south reviled it, criticized it, yelled and screamed and cursed it, sometimes with an ear shot of their enslaved people who then spread the word.
[SPEAKER_00]: So in some sections of the country here and there, enslaved people knew that freedom was on the horizon, but in a practical way, they didn't know how to access that freedom because freedom hadn't arrived in the form of union troops on their doorstep or whatnot.
[SPEAKER_00]: There were a few
[SPEAKER_00]: pockets throughout the south where Union troops, Union soldiers were stationed.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in those locations, there was often an adherence to the emancipation proclamation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some people were able to leave
[SPEAKER_00]: of freedom or a system of compensation for enslaved people were enforced by union troops.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for the most part, it was this idealized theoretical freedom only on paper with the coming
[SPEAKER_00]: The end of the Civil War, it was pretty much determined to be the law of the land.
[SPEAKER_00]: Of course, it took the passing of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution to officially abolish slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: The 14th Amendment to grant the rights of citizenship and the 15th Amendment to grant voting rights only to African-American men, not women.
[SPEAKER_00]: So out of, you know, one movement into the next, in that time, I think people knew that freedom was coming, and so from place to place, they began to talk about and celebrate in many different ways, what a new one freedom of being.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, even after the end of the Civil War, the opposite of freedom occurred in several places where some enslaved people were learning about the end of the war learning.
[SPEAKER_00]: about their emancipation as late as the year 1867 and other parts of the country where I think they would call themselves unreconstructed southerners refused to free their slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they kept them on lockdown on plantations until the time where federal authorities could step in and mediate, actually grant physical freedom to those who had been held in bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a often blurry time of history.
[SPEAKER_00]: One that still needs to be clarified and explored and
[SPEAKER_04]: So then, why June 19th, 1865?
[SPEAKER_04]: Why is that click part of it clear?
[SPEAKER_04]: The Texas thing, yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so in Texas, almost immediately, the day appears to take hold.
[SPEAKER_00]: So June 19th, 1865, Union, General Gordon, Granger, Reads, the emancipation proclamation.
[SPEAKER_00]: to a group of enslaved people gathered at Galveston within the next year.
[SPEAKER_00]: There are the first formal abrasions and at first, you know, these are like, you know, community gatherings.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they would have been times where family members that had been broken apart under slavery.
[SPEAKER_00]: would have been reuniting where people would have been receiving their first form of compensation for their labor where black legislators were being elected to serve in state and national government positions by say the year 1870.
[SPEAKER_00]: So each year brought a little more freedom and more desire for celebration.
[SPEAKER_00]: So around this date, Juneteenth, in Texas, you would have picnics and barbecue over time people celebrated with parades.
[SPEAKER_00]: In my mom's hometown of Houston, Texas, in the early 1870s, black citizens, purchased land and
[SPEAKER_00]: established a mancipation park which is which is still there today in the neighborhood where my mom grew up and just a block or two from where a George Floyd went to school and a mancipation park was there as you know
[SPEAKER_00]: public space for black people place where they could gather socially and celebrate on June 19.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it really remained a Texas celebration pretty much through the 19th century and early 20th century later over time, especially once we get to the civil rights and post civil rights movement
[SPEAKER_00]: and there is more of a black power movement, black identity movement of the 1960s, people start looking to Juneteenth as a symbolic day for, you know, recognition of emancipation,
[SPEAKER_00]: generally.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, you always reach that hundred-year mark that hundred-year century anniversary of something and then there's a resurgence in interest and that's what it appears as that happened with the Juneteenth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so Juneteenth starts popping up across the nation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, the subject of, you know, local picnics and art festival, Juneteenth was the day where people get with gather and re poems.
[SPEAKER_00]: were sing songs by prominent African-American.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Negro National Anthem from the beginning of the 20th century, a lived every voice and sing becomes a favorite at Juneteenth celebrations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so a history even between Juneteenth and the 1960, gets revitalized.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, people are really learning their history and the midst of making new history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you get to the 1980s and early 1990s, Juneteenth becomes adopted as a holiday, sometimes unofficial, sometimes official.
[SPEAKER_00]: by different state legislatures as this kind of, you know, stand alone, historical marker for the freeing of slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I believe as of today, there's, I think it's two states that there's only two states that don't recognize Juneteenth as a holiday in some kind of,
[SPEAKER_00]: and so kind of form or another.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea of freedom, I believe, is that there can't be too many holidays to celebrate freedom on.
[SPEAKER_04]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_04]: Right.
[SPEAKER_04]: And we're none of us are free till we're all free, kind of things.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: And, tell me, you do such a great job of portraying the picture of how the emancipation wasn't an overnight thing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's sort of trickled out.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is that the word
[SPEAKER_05]: It's sort of happened over a period of time, which I think is a perspective that's important for us to understand as we look back on our American history.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I'm imagining those scenes you described of someone coming into town, a union officer, and saying, okay, you all are free now.
[SPEAKER_05]: A couple of things, first of all, would they have believed it?
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, there might have been a lot of fear that it was, you know, a trick or not true.
[SPEAKER_05]: And then also, they said, okay, now we're free, let's leave.
[SPEAKER_05]: I imagine that was an extremely dangerous proposition because surely there were vigilante groups all over and people that were angry about this and didn't want them to leave.
[SPEAKER_05]: So, I don't know, is give us some insight into that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting because I think if we just step back into the period of slavery, slavery was a system that was colloquial and discretionary, meaning what it looked like, what the how it operated was really based regionally.
[SPEAKER_00]: And on specific more A's and values of those communities that it existed at.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, it's a well-known that slavery and Maryland while every form and permutation of the system brutal to harsh existed.
[SPEAKER_00]: That Maryland in terms of slavery became known as the middle ground or the middle temperament that the labor that slaves were enslaved people were engaged in here and the industries and so but weren't as intense and labor intensive.
[SPEAKER_00]: as, for instance, slavery in the deep south where you had a lower life expectancy much hard conditions.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have all of these different landscapes of geographical economic
[SPEAKER_00]: and social landscapes or terrains that, you know, people had to negotiate even before the Civil War.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there are accounts from slave narratives where several, you know, almost any time power changed hands and a new president was going to be elected.
[SPEAKER_00]: one oponent or the other said, well, you know, he'll free the slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they're actually accounts, election results coming back in certain places and slaves throwing down their tools because their owner cursed or cusp about, you know, this particular candidate would free the slaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they were sure that the positive election result was going to result in their freedom.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were mistaken.
[SPEAKER_00]: Many were actually very politically savvy having politicians in southern legislatures in the natural legislatures like to represent those districts from this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they knew and could listen in on the political news that was being passed throughout the plantation house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there was varying degrees of awareness, you know, even people who fought about escaping their captivity during their period of enslavement were told wild stories that the abolitionists, you know, temp slaves north, so they could enslave them there.
[SPEAKER_00]: On one one plantation, a freedom
[SPEAKER_00]: reported that his owner had told him many times that if you get to Canada, the Canada geese will pick out a black man's eye and he determined in his mind that he take his chances with some, you know, grumpy geese as opposed to being held in bondage for life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he escaped.
[SPEAKER_00]: So imagine, especially during the civil war, union troops coming through the south, it not only terrified slaveholders, but enslaved people themselves because they didn't know what the result would bring.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what people knew what freedom was, they had a sense of it because they could see it every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: Their labor, their physical and economic sacrifice created freedom for those who kept them in bondage.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, freedom wasn't necessarily a locational thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't necessarily like Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't terraforming.
[SPEAKER_00]: You didn't have to necessarily get to a particular geographic location.
[SPEAKER_00]: Freedom was something within.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the ability to chart one's own course and to enjoy the fruits of one's own labor.
[SPEAKER_05]: Tony, are there instances where he's after the emancipation?
[SPEAKER_05]: They would begin to pay their their former enslaved people and they stayed on in their situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this occurred all throughout the south.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some planters established a wage and paid.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're they're formerly enslaved people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that hearing Maryland for instance,
[SPEAKER_00]: after a Maryland abolished a slavery which I'll speak about in a moment.
[SPEAKER_00]: They quickly organized and established the greed upon wage that would be paid to formally enslaved people in Charles County.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that way, the formerly enslaved would have, you know, would not have bargaining power and could not demand from, you know, one employer,
[SPEAKER_00]: more than from another employer, eventually the tenant farming system was established throughout this out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was really a reach back to the slavery system, but with a kind of new
[SPEAKER_00]: but then offered to keep them on with wages.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would throw in the housing, free of charge, you could live in that, you know, live in the house, live in the same place where you have been and earn a wage.
[SPEAKER_00]: But under the tenant farming system, you would get your food sometimes and other supplies.
[SPEAKER_00]: from the farm or plantation general store, that could even include clothing and other types of goods and services.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of the month or the end of the year, you would settle accounts.
[SPEAKER_00]: So your wages were paid.
[SPEAKER_00]: After you have reimbursed the owner or the general store for expenses and you want to take a guess.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, that sounds like running a business.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, expenses always outweigh earnings.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there was a solution to that, you were allowed to stay on for another year and do it all over it.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and it seems like the best choice at the time, that's where the expression the company store comes from, you know, the meaning behind that, you know, the meaning behind that is like you, you know, the company store sort of own you because of what Tony just described.
[SPEAKER_05]: Like you're always owing the company store even though it's supposedly your money.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even though I'm guessing the term as we know it, the company's store probably comes in later the coal mining places where they're like mining towns and stuff like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: they were absolutely drawing from a template, the template that came out of slavery earlier and who knows probably in different forms before that in other places.
[SPEAKER_00]: So freedom itself had a cost.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I would say in many ways are still working at winning our freedoms.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, Tony, I'm so glad you said that because I was just thinking, you know, we talked about slavery and enslaved people and that, you know, it ended during this period of history, but as you're pointing out,
[SPEAKER_05]: It just evolves, it's called different things.
[SPEAKER_05]: It takes different iterations.
[SPEAKER_05]: It has different nuances, but still, to this day and especially in our highly industrialist systems, certainly the clothing industry, the food industry.
[SPEAKER_05]: There are people that are living under such restrictions and economic limitations.
[SPEAKER_05]: Why does it seem like we can't speak in terms of modern day slavery?
[SPEAKER_05]: That seems to be resisted.
[SPEAKER_05]: Is it because people feel like it minimizes that period in our history?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think we'll never, ever, and...
[SPEAKER_00]: Possibly wherever we are at any given time during the globe on the globe, any reference to any attention to injustice can appear to be feel like an indictment, it's the mirror that that that we live to our own face and you know we can see.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, all of our faults and shortcomings.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that makes people uncomfortable, especially when people start considering what their hand is in systems of injustice.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so taking that hard, introspective, critical look at ourselves, how we operate in the world, what our culpability might be, can be very difficult.
[SPEAKER_00]: And furthermore, if we disagree with the negative condition,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, if we're in our minds against a slavery, but we buy our clothes from foreign sweatshops, I think there is an internal pressure, often we view it as an external pressure to change our behaviors.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we look to change our behaviors, that often means giving up comfort or something that we might
[SPEAKER_00]: think of as our own freedoms, and then there's the conflict, which makes us no different than people of a century and a half ago, except that we have... quasi-banner health care than them.
[SPEAKER_00]: better sewage and sanitation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, maybe not.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're we have more access to information, but not necessarily the ability or willingness to learn and act upon the lessons that greater knowledge provides as well.
[SPEAKER_04]: We need to critically absorb and for me.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: You got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_05]: Here's something I've thought of recently.
[SPEAKER_05]: There's
[SPEAKER_05]: a lot of you'll hear a lot of commentary out there that the goods that are available at an affordable price are necessary for people of a certain economic level because that's all they can afford.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's really hard to change the system because of accessibility.
[SPEAKER_05]: All right.
[SPEAKER_05]: So I'm thinking, how is that different from the plantation owners back in the early 19th century that said they, that, yeah, maybe slavery, yeah, maybe there's problems with it, but we can't afford anything else, our economy won't work without the system.
[SPEAKER_05]: Are we not saying something similar now?
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I believe so, let's take for instance, the fair trade movement, mind buying your products directly from locations, villages, what not, where those products are produced and the money can go directly back to them.
[SPEAKER_00]: is inspired either directly and directly or a happenstance by the free labor movement of the 1820s and 30s where Quaker run or would offer item that were produced not through slave labor.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, there was, you know, many an abolitionist table in the north that did not have a sugar bowl, because sugar was produced by enslaved people, the same thing with cotton cotton was a slave product.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's not that we have new-fangled ideas and new approaches, you know, in the modern age,
[SPEAKER_00]: We're still needing to draw from time-by-art video movement to exactly kind of change we want in the present.
[SPEAKER_05]: how enlightened are we?
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, had a loop.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and I love the example of the sugarball on the table, because that's the personal gent there of an individual or a family or a household that was one way in which they were not going to participate.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I think the more we can educate people about
[SPEAKER_05]: how things arrive onto their table or into the stores or so that people are able to make those decisions and begin an awareness of the complexity of this that we're not talking about history.
[SPEAKER_05]: Juneteenth is not about something that happened in 1965 only.
[SPEAKER_05]: It has implications.
[SPEAKER_05]: right now, every day for all of this.
[SPEAKER_04]: I love hearing about these Quakers and everyone in Maryland and you have such a wealth of knowledge about Maryland specifically.
[SPEAKER_04]: So can you talk to us a little bit more about local emancipation and what happened here and is going on here?
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_00]: Our area has a very interesting history.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, we're still uncovering information almost every day.
[SPEAKER_00]: But when is unique during the Civil War, it was distinguished as a neutral state did not pick aside during the war.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was also, you know, clearly or graphically situated.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the seat of our government in Washington, D.C. was, you know, physically located in the south.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like your head, but with drawn so Congress during the Civil War, mainly had northern representation, but was surrounded by enemy territory.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Maryland remained in neutral a while that essentially northern government to continue.
[SPEAKER_00]: and it quickly moved to abolishing slavery in the district.
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it was April 16, 1862 when DC abolished slavery and almost immediately, and to this day, that day to an April.
[SPEAKER_00]: is celebrated as DC emancipation date and is a sitting holiday.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the subject of again, you know, old street fairs going all the way up through the early teens, 19 teens was the time of reunions of former formerly enslaved people.
[SPEAKER_00]: There would be slave reunion as people spent decades re-uniting and remembering what some of them referred to as the dark days, you know, kind of of enslavement.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here in our county, for instance, we actually benefited strongly from DC emancipation under the federal act.
[SPEAKER_00]: you could free your slave people and be compensated, provided that you either were resident of the district that you have property holdings in the district that you're enslaved people, whether you were in Northern Virginia or suburban Maryland.
[SPEAKER_00]: were actually employed in the district, you could free them.
[SPEAKER_00]: So one amazing example of this locally was the Bell family of Rockville.
[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone's been to Montgomery County Historical Society, that's the location of the Bell Dawson House, which is owned by the city of Rockville, are 1815ish federal mansion.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Margaret Bell, who is the patriarch of the state at that time, freed, I believe it was either 17 or 19 of her enslaved people, for which she was compensated, I don't have the number right in front of me, but I think it was over $9,000 through this federal act.
[SPEAKER_00]: As a result, she then began selling to those formerly enslaved people for an amount fee simple of $5.
[SPEAKER_00]: plots of land, formerly of the Bell estate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So today, the Bell Dawson house is still there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of funded by a West Montgomery Avenue.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it goes north, following to the west of North Washington Street in downtown Rockville.
[SPEAKER_00]: to a black community called haytie and that's where the descendants or the newly freed enslaved people from the bells purchased their lots, built their homes and settled and their descendants are still there today.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you were able to purchase one of those lots with the house on it,
[SPEAKER_00]: goes to it, depending on the size of the lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see the results of, you know, just an example of generational a wealth that can be passed down when you own something.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, that's just one example of how an emancipation act actually helps transform a community.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know there's many or many like free slave communities around the county.
[SPEAKER_04]: We might have talked about this last time too, or is that related to the Bell estate?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, there are many of them and a lot of those settlements.
[SPEAKER_00]: are carved from former states, either on or adjacent to where those former formerly enslaved people had been enslaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some settlers of those areas came from other locations and
[SPEAKER_00]: and and and bought land there or the site of you know kinship community.
[SPEAKER_00]: So family units that extended back into slavery and you know emerged after where people who are related to one another devil in these unique on enclaves.
[SPEAKER_00]: The the other form of of freedom that we had here in Maryland actually came
[SPEAKER_00]: In November 1st of 1864, when the state of Maryland changed its constitution to formally abolish slavery, and this occurred six months before the civil war, and it was the first example.
[SPEAKER_00]: of a state legislator or actually a state which abolishes slavery through a popular boat.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't the state legislature deciding it was the people.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know it was a close vote.
[SPEAKER_00]: It almost didn't happen, but it did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And there was also a hope there that perhaps slaveholders would be a compensated
[SPEAKER_00]: for their loss and for those listening in, I'm saying loss with error quotes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, they didn't get compensation, but as part of the process to consider a composite compensation, we have the records.
[SPEAKER_00]: of all the slaveholders in Maryland who claimed, you know, who held people at the time of the Civil War and list those enslaved people by name.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, one, one result of Maryland emancipation,
[SPEAKER_00]: is if your family goes back in Maryland to that period of time whether you're in slave or a slave holder, those records are there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of information is now being the source of helping African-Americans break through that, you know, firewall to to to to to learn where they came from
[SPEAKER_00]: to break through what became a wall of silence within their families and sometimes there are communities and actually know who their ancestors had possession of and to start bridging gaps, start uniting, starting
[SPEAKER_00]: to reach out and face our history together.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I couldn't think of a better time in our history for people to be coming together to face our nation's original sin.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then create something new.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: Do any, how do you celebrate Juneteenth?
[SPEAKER_00]: sometimes a good with always at least half of the day napping that is true freedom getting to nap with the phone turned off.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in all seriousness, you know, I run the button farm living history center.
[SPEAKER_00]: So usually I'm speaking at an event or, you know, doing something history related.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, basically out there a community with the community,
[SPEAKER_00]: actually runs a heritage tour company.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this Juneteenth we have our first bus Vaxed busload of people coming to Maryland to do a tour of the Harriet Tubman underground railroad by way in Dorchester County and visit the Harriet Tubman Museum in State Park.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm spending
[SPEAKER_00]: introducing people to Maryland's history, our amazing legacy of gold for dignity and human rights, and we'll have some good food and maybe a drinker to along the way.
[SPEAKER_04]: And now that things are opening up, what are your, what are your button farms plans for the tourism stuff?
[SPEAKER_04]: Or has any of that moved up at all?
[SPEAKER_04]: Or are you still kind of like on pause till 2020?
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not on pause.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are go, go, go.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: We opened the farm this year to camping on, I believe it was March 15th.
[SPEAKER_00]: Usually we don't even open the farm to volunteers until April because, you know,
[SPEAKER_00]: yeah the winners know and the grounds are wet and you know you're bringing anyone to the farm they get stuck in the mud but this what year was a fairly dry winter so we got a two month jump on our normal schedule so we opened it up to camping
[SPEAKER_00]: If anyone wants to camp it button farm, you can find us on hip camp dot com and then we brought in volunteers beginning in April to help you know start a d went to rising the farm and getting ready for visitors may first we opened up to the general public we have a part what we call park and play pass $10 a vehicle come out to the farm.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do self guided tours.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get on your bike and ride the trails around the farm.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can bring your own picnic just spin a number of hours a year out in the fresh air.
[SPEAKER_00]: This month, June, we started guided tours.
[SPEAKER_00]: So every weekend, I do a guided tour of the farm called Button Farm Almanac.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's kind of the A to Z of the farm, what happens here and the samples of the programs of that we do coming up in July will actually be the 25th anniversary.
[SPEAKER_00]: of my walk to Canada, my 1996 expedition from Maryland to Canada.
[SPEAKER_04]: And so that's weird because you're 25, aren't you?
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, close.
[SPEAKER_04]: But I must have done that walk when you were like, I'm 26.
[SPEAKER_04]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll take the compliment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was an infant when I crawled to Canada.
[SPEAKER_00]: Love you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But yes, so I'll be doing a silver anniversary presentation and then we're just going to have a summer of some interesting things.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think everything by Junting our full schedule will be on our
[SPEAKER_00]: on our website so people can check that out but it will be different local art and artisans who will be here at the farm throughout the summer.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have a number of new tour experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll have some old traditions in September.
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll do we'll bring back our annual drinks on the
[SPEAKER_00]: We've come out and taste some looks look get the local spirit as we say in relax and then everything from underground railroad night hikes to some events leading up to a mancipation day at the end of October.
[SPEAKER_00]: So listeners can you know check out our website buttonbarmed.org.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a calendar there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, just a
[SPEAKER_00]: Celebrate the new freedom we all have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, as we break the shackles of mask wearing and, you know, isolation.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, boy, it's a really different scenario from when we talked to you last time, whenever that was back in January or whatever, it just sounds like a
[SPEAKER_05]: The historical perspective on all of this, your historical and your human perspective on the whole thing and I've gained so much understanding today and so much insight into this and I just really appreciate you coming on and just talking to us about it.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I feel so lucky that we're neighbors.
[SPEAKER_04]: I know.
[SPEAKER_04]: And I'd like to say one last thing in parting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: You did this, you're so gracious to invite me on last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: And recently, we sent out a newsletter and we put in that previous podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And
[SPEAKER_00]: with an OEAC a bunch of people just showed up at the farm because they were inspired by a you know, we are both you, you too, and and the button farmer are in our county's agresor.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for people who haven't been to the agresor, is it just this beautiful swath of our county where you know, the emphasis is on you know land conservation
[SPEAKER_00]: and digging in the dirt and planting on some of the many farms, but there's something else that happens here.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a sense of community, and it's not an exclusive community.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everything we do here is to welcome people and create community for the larger community.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just want to thank you for doing so much
[SPEAKER_00]: for the greater community to create an expand community to bring people together and then provide places, whether it's virtual through a podcast or physical where people can come, where they can open their minds, where they can get a moment to breathe and step back, where they can rejuvenate themselves, like it one of your great retreats, right?
[SPEAKER_00]: and then go back into the world, fully juiced up, inspired, ready to take it on and to bring about change.
[SPEAKER_00]: All of that is freedom to me and I think it's a great inspiration for this Juneteenth or any Juneteenth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you just thank you for what you do and thank you for being friends and thank you for having me on.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you so much Rose.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was a wiper.
[SPEAKER_05]: I was over here.
[SPEAKER_05]: She's this.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_05]: So she's like, sign off.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_04]: I think that was a great ending.
[SPEAKER_04]: That was wonderful.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much.
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll include that every year.
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