On June 19th, 2021, Benicia Black Lives Matter hosted the first City proclaimed Juneteenth Event in Benicia, California. The event was held at the Benicia Historical Museum.
Shortened version, 23 minutesSee also Juneteenth in Benicia – It was a great celebration! (coverage by Richard Freedman of the Vallejo Times-Herald).
Benicia Mayor Steve Young graduated from Burbank High School, earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from UC Berkeley and a master of arts degree in urban policy and administration from San Francisco State.
Not one class discussed Juneteenth. No mention. Nothing.
“It’s something we never learned … Juneteenth and the Tulsa Massacre, the things an educated person like myself should have learned a long time ago,” Young said, minutes before presenting a “Juneteenth Freedom Day” proclamation Saturday at the City of Benicia Inaugural Juneteenth Celebration at the Camel Barn Museum.
Featuring a dozen Black-owned businesses, speeches, poetry reading and the singing of the Negro National Anthem, the significance of the first Juneteenth in Benicia — complemented by Juneteenth as a new federal holiday — “indicates that we’ve made progress and, though we have a long way to go, what it means for the history of this country is very significant,” Young said.
The Benicia Juneteenth Celebration “is huge,” said Brandon Greene of the event-sponsoring Benicia Black Lives Matter, especially coming on the heels of raising the Freedom Flag in Benicia “which had never been done.”
Greene, 38, a seven-year Benician, grew up in Las Vegas after his family left the Deep South in the Great Migration west.
“I was fortunate that my grandparents knew their history and taught our history to me,” Greene said, happy that “the federal government has finally recognized Juneteenth” as President Joe Biden signed off on it Thursday.
“President Obama always did proclamations, but never had the ability to pass it through Congress to make it a federal holiday,” Greene said, calling it “a reckoning on how we teach history in this country.”
Greene added that the fruits of Black Lives Matter’s labor in creating the Camel Barn event was worth it as the venue filled even before the official 11 a.m. start.
“This is amazing … the energy … and being able to see all the Black vendors,” Greene said.
Another Benicia Black Lives Matter activist, 19-year Benicia resident Nimat Shakoor-Grantham, acknowledged that a Juneteenth Celebration is a big step in educating the town’s residences.
“Even in my beginning of trying to organize Benicia Black Lives Matter, I was told by so many white people, ‘Why are you trying to cause dissension in our town. We don’t need this,’” Shakoor-Grantham said. “I’ve had my son called racist names. I’ve been called racist names and stopped by police asking me, ‘Where do you live?’”
Black people in the predominantly White city “need to be respected,” continued Shakoor-Grantham, emphasizing that the new holiday “is a reminder that America had slaves and slaves actually built this country under toil, bondage and free labor. Juneteenth shows how resilient we are and that there’s no reason to treat us like second-class citizens. Making it a federal holiday is long overdue.”
Shakoor-Grantham said she was “surprised” at the big turn-out at the Camel Barn.
“I’m happy. My heart is full. There are so many people that want to know the true history, so many that feel it’s time for Black people to be treated equally,” she said.
Incorporating Black history into the Benicia school curricula is in the works, Shakoor-Grantham said, which would help “make it better for Black people to live here.”
Daniel Halyard, 73, ran the NAACP information table with his wife, Betty, and said Juneteeth “is freedom day for us” and, though grateful it’s now a federal holiday, “a lot more needs to be done. Reparations, better jobs, better opportunities.”
A 12-year-Benician, Gethsemane Moss, said the Juneteenth Celebration “is really important to our residents in not only understanding the history. I hope it’s an annual event we do and continues to grow. ”
She hopes the locals get educated and no longer “go with the false narratives, with a lack of understanding generation after generation. It’s an epic fail.”
Dr. Maliika Chambers, Benicia’s Equity Diversity Inclusion Manager, said the city’s first Juneteenth Celebration “is huge. It’s amazing,” emphasizing the event was “pro-active” and not “re-active.”
The new holiday, Juneteenth National Independence Day, “is like people knowing it’s your birthday and finally celebrating it,” Chambers said. “It raises the conversation around the contribution of African Americans. It’s one more step in the conversation.”
From BeniciaBlackLivesMatter.com
[See also: About BBLM]
June 11, 2021
Non-white woman
Age 32
Employed in Benicia for 4 years
As a member of the working community of Benicia, I had the opportunity to do business with with the Benicia School District. Over the last five years, I observed and got to know many staff members from several of the schools. My first impression of the Benicia Schools was they are comfortable, communal environments. However, within a short time I noticed a pervasive undercurrent of racism. I witnessed several staff members, particularly among the support staff, make casual comments to each other and sometimes to parents about students and families of color that were both derogatory and clearly based in biased beliefs. Although I am not white, my ethnic background was not visually obvious, so I was considered part of the “privileged” group and overheard their conversations without any filters being applied. After noticing the first few comments, I began to listen for it, and was shocked at how frequently demeaning things were said or done.
Although I have been witness to occasional racist comments or acts being said or done at other venues, what I saw and heard at the schools was far more offensive. It was blatant. And there was an assumption that this behavior is appropriate and normal. The engaged staff did not mask or hide their comments. They did not lower their voices. The principal’s offices, which are typically right in the midst of the main office where much of this was taking place, were sometimes wide open and the administration easily within earshot. Staff and people of the community were regularly walking in and out of the area, all within hearing range of the comments being said. And yet it continued uninterrupted. I found myself feeling increasingly uncomfortable and afraid for the students and families of color.
These are some of the things I witnessed:
The Benicia School District accepts and encourages the attendance of transfer students (students who live outside of the District) in order to keep the schools open and maintain attendance numbers to increase State funding, yet they are not readily accepted at the school sites. Some of the administrative staff handling these transfers assume that non-white transfers, particularly Black or Brown ones, come from Vallejo. In fact, “Vallejo” seemed to be used as a code word for non-white or poor. On the other hand, white transfer students are never presumed to be from Vallejo, even when that is their hometown. Regardless of where the families live, rather than being welcomed, transfer students are seen as “sucking up resources” and getting an education at the “expense of Benicia tax payers. There seems to be a firm belief that transfer families should be grateful, rather than we should be grateful that the transfer students are bringing additional revenues to our district, or more importantly, these are individual children with individual circumstances, all of whom should be welcomed and embraced.
Non-white students and their families are frequently referred to as “ghetto.”
White parents seemed to disproportionately report the behavior of non-white parents at student drop off. Sometimes I saw them threaten to call the police for common traffic grievances such as driving too fast, arriving late, or blocking traffic, all of which are experienced and/or committed by nearly everyone sometime during the school year. I rarely, if ever, witnessed a parent of color complaining about the same things.
Christian-based holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, are often celebrated in the classrooms, alienating non-Christian students. When the principal at one school made an effort to be culturally sensitive and teachers were asked not to put up Christmas trees and similar decorations in classrooms, the mandate was largely disregarded.
Similarly, traditional curriculum that includes stereotyped versions of certain ethnic groups are still widely used. A few years ago, the District made an effort to remove books, references and curriculum that are inaccurate or offensive, much of which was ignored in favor of the historical curriculum, such as the 4th grade Mission Project or assigning “tribe” names to desk groups.
Black students (particularly boys) are frequently singled out by teachers and are far more likely to be sent out of class to work alone than their white counterparts. Also, African American boys were more likely to be treated as older than their peers. I even heard that a white female teacher in her 50s told many coworkers that she was being sexually harassed by a ten year old boy because he commented that he liked her outfits. She said he must have learned it from his father, an African American man she also perceived to be “aggressive.”
These are just a few of the many examples of prejudiced and intolerant behavior I noted. It saddens me to know that there is a dark underbelly of racism that runs through the schools in this beautiful community. This is where our youth are learning lifelong lessons – both academically and socially. I only hope that the school district wakes up from its complacency and implements some serious equity training and consequences for the staff members who continue to cultivate an imaginary and dangerous hierarchy amongst the staff, families and students.
Previous ‘Our Voices’ stories here on the BenIndy at
Benicia Black Lives Matter – Our Voices
or on the BBLM website at
beniciablacklivesmatter.weebly.com/ourvoices
VALLEJO – Solano County Sheriff Tom Ferrara announced on Friday that he would run for reelection in 2022, seeking another four-year term after 10 years in the position.
Ferrara has faced recent controversy after it was revealed that several deputies posted symbols of the Three Percenter anti-government militia on social media. Ferrara declined to investigate the extent of extremism in his department, falsely said the FBI cleared the deputies of association with extremist groups, and has faced calls for new oversight of his office.
In a video message posted on Facebook Friday morning, Ferrara touted the support of the deputies’ union and the correctional officers’ union. “Now more than ever Solano County needs proven leadership,” Ferrara said. “I have shown this type of leadership through multiple disasters, civil unrest and the pandemic, which we’ve all experienced in the last few years.”
Ferrara was appointed sheriff in 2012 after his predecessor retired. He won his first election unopposed in 2014 and fended off challenges from sheriff’s Deputy Daryl Snedeker and Fairfield police Lt. Dan Marshall in 2018.
But Ferrara has faced political controversy and protest in recent months after an investigative report revealed that three high-profile members of his staff had openly displayed Three Percenter emblems on social media pages.
They included Sgt. Roy Stockton, a Vacaville councilmember who was endorsed by Ferrara, Sgt. Cully Pratt, the department’s former public information officer, SWAT team member Sgt. Ty Pierce, and Deputy Dale Matsuoka, the department’s homeless outreach coordinator.
In response to the revelations, Ferrara said in a statement that the employees named “all serve this agency and this community with passion and dedication.”
Ferrara argued that the deputies had intended to show support for the 2nd Amendment, but Three Percenter groups often call for violent resistance to the federal government if they interpret restrictions on gun possession as against their interpretation of the Constitution. Three Percenter groups have been implicated in bombing and kidnapping plots and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The sheriff later defended the deputies by writing in letters to Benicia Black Lives Matter and the Solano County Democratic Central Committee that he “consulted with the FBI, who confirmed none of my employees are members of any extremist organizations.”
But the FBI disputed Ferrara’s statement, saying that it did not track participation in extremist groups nor is it “sufficient basis for an FBI investigation.”
Unsatisfied by the sheriff’s response, members of Benicia Black Lives Matter have called for the Solano County Board of Supervisors to create an oversight board of the sheriff’s office.
But only Supervisor Monica Brown supported even discussing the suggestion. Meanwhile, the Solano County Republicans have organized in opposition to any new oversight.
Benicia Black Lives Matter has continued to protest the sheriff’s office, including staging a rally outside the sheriff’s office on the anniversary of the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Scott Morris is an independent journalist in Oakland covering policing, protest and civil rights. If you appreciate his work please consider making a contribution.
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