Juneteenth Events

• Historical marker installation will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 20, at 334 Ash St. A reception will will follow at Curtis House Cultural Center, 630 Washington St. The marker notes the murder of a Black man, Grover C. Everett, who was staying at a hotel for Blacks on Ash Street. The Equal Justice Initiative of Montgomery, Alabama, provided the marker.
• Let Us Breathe and the Abilene Black Chamber of Commerce will hold a three-day observance in Stevenson Park and the Woodson Center for Excellence. Festivities will be from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, June 19; 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 20; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, June 21. 
• The Juneteenth Gospel & Praise Concert will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, June 19, in Logsdon Chapel on the campus of Hardin-Simmons University. Jennifer Sherman, wife of Mt. Zion Baptist Church minister DeMotis Sherman, and HSU President Eric Bruntmyer will lead the service. Guest clinician will be Gospel recording artist Nero D. Foster.

Click here to read a story about a 2019 project commemorating the site of Grover Everett’s death. The Community Remembrance Project was sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative to bring attention to the history of violence against Blacks. It involved gathering soil from the site of Everett’s murder to place in one-gallon jars for display in two museums.

By Loretta Fulton

The installation of a historical marker noting the killing of a Black man at an Abilene hotel in 1922 will highlight Juneteenth observances in Abilene.

The marker installation will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 20, at 334 Ash St. A reception will will follow at Curtis House Cultural Center, 630 Washington St. The marker was provided by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. The inscription ends with these words:

“Grover C. Everett was one of more than 650 victims of racial terror in Texas between 1865 and 1950.”

The marker will be installed across the street from the actual site where Everett was shot to death “at the hands of an unknown party of masked men,” according to an article in the Sept. 21, 1922, Abilene Daily Reporter. Everett was from Sulphur Springs in East Texas and was staying at the Joe Davis Hotel for “negroes” while in Abilene. 

Two Juneteenth observances will be held on Friday, June 19, the actual day that former slaves in Texas learned that they were free. The Emancipation Proclamation became effective Jan. 1, 1863, but word of that event didn’t reach Texas slaves until June 19, 1865. President Joe Biden signed a bill on June 17, 2021, making Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

The Juneteenth Gospel & Praise Concert will begin at 6 p.m. Friday, June 19, in Logsdon Chapel on the campus of Hardin-Simmons University. Jennifer Sherman, wife of Mt. Zion Baptist Church minister DeMotis Sherman, and HSU President Eric Bruntmyer will lead the service. Guest clinician will be Gospel recording artist Nero D. Foster. 

Let Us Breathe and the Abilene Black Chamber of Commerce will hold a three-day observance in Stevenson Park and the Woodson Center for Excellence. Festivities will be from 6 to 10 p.m. Friday, June 19; 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, June 20, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, June 21. 

The marker installation will be the second observance of Everett’s murder by the Equal Justice Initiative. In 2019 the EJI held a ceremony here in conjunction with its Community Remembrance Project. Two identical jars of soil from the site of the murder were collected. One remains on permanent display at the Curtis House Cultural Center. The other was taken to the EJI museum in Montgomery to be displayed alongside similar jars from other places. 

At the beginning of the soil collection ceremony, Rev. Andrew Penns, pastor of Valley View Missionary Baptist Church, offered a prayer of thanksgiving for safe travels of those attending from distant places and for those who worked hard to make the commemoration a reality.

“Even though this was a tragedy,” Penns said, “it has been turned into a blessing.”

Loretta Fulton is creator and editor of Spirit of Abilene