Black Muslims, Honoring Juneteenth

Kayla Renée Wheeler

I’m from Cleveland, Ohio, but my family is mainly from Missouri and Georgia. Growing up, we didn’t celebrate it. I’ve always known the history and significance of Juneteenth, but it just wasn’t a big thing where I lived. I saw it as a Southern thing and really more of a Texas thing. Honestly, it’s only really become big in my hometown in the past 15 or so years.

I started celebrating it as an adult, especially after I started getting into learning about my genealogy. For me, it’s a way to honor my ancestors, but also to connect with my Southern roots and to my family that still lives in the South. Only a very small portion of my family came up north during the Great Migration and with each new generation, I feel like we’re more disconnected from our Southern roots, even though I can still hear it in my grandparents’ speech, I feel it in my mom’s rootwork, and taste it in our food. But we don’t name it.