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Hi, my name is Sherrell Daley and I am interviewing... Eunice Hagler. And today is May 25th, 2023 and we're at City Point right now. So how are you doing today? I am sensational, cold but sensational.

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That's good. So what does Juneteenth mean to you? Juneteenth means to me that I am, that I am somebody. I grew up in a rural county in in Fredericksburg, Virginia and I didn't know I had a history. I didn't know that I was somebody, you know, I was just this this entity living there. I lived in an all-white neighborhood but I went to an all-black school. I didn't know-I didn't know about race. I didn't know that I had a race. I didn't know I had a culture. I didn't know that I could be, I am. So how do you feel with Juneteenth becoming like a federal holiday? What does that mean to you? Well actually it was a little bit more important to me for it to become a state holiday. So, one of the things that I wanted to do, I wanted to take our children back. I wanted to take our communities back. I wanted our men to have a sense of pride again. And so I didn't really know how about going about doing that and so I said, okay, well, I kind of may have to figure out a way for us to know that we are important. And so this Juneteenth thing came about, there was two organizations in Fredericksburg, one I belong to, the other one wanted to, their organization to be more diverse. And so they reached out to us and I found out that it was the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth. June who? And so I did the research and and you know we did Juneteenth and I had been doing Juneteenth in Fredericksburg for about 10 years and I found out that for me to accomplish my goals, I had to do it legislatively. But, I didn't know how to go do any of that. So, when Juneteenth came about, I'm like okay. I reached out to the National Association and they said, first you need to, before you try to make it a national holiday, you need to try to make it a state holiday. So that was my goal. I got signatures, I reached out to the black community. I invested them in, in, you know, in a sense of us because we never had that before, and so consequently we did Juneteenth we celebrated we partied we had fun and it was just, it was just an exciting time. And so, you know, our people in Fredricksburg kind of got some pride in themselves. And so like then in-I had invited this young man to be on the program, not knowing that later on he was going to be a state legislator. And so when he became a state legislator, one of the first bills that he put in was for Juneteenth to become a state holiday. My goal, you know, okay, so we are somebody, black people, you know, we can be somebody. So, you know, let's have this sense of pride. And we brought communities together, you know, those, those kids that I wanted to take back in the communities, you know, we were able to do that. And so unfortunately when he first put it in, it didn't pass because it has to go to the attorneys and the language was not right. And so Governor Northam called him and said, I understand that you put in for Juneteenth to be a holiday. He said, yeah, but it didn't pass. He said, okay, put it in next next session and then but then it would not have been a holiday until the following year, and so he said no bring it back the special session, I'll make sure that it passes unanimously, and that's what happened. And so, for me, Juneteenth is unity, it's community. And so like the ones that we did, everybody came together. And so I had no budget. I did this for these years with no kind of budget. People working together, nobody went hungry. We had all kinds of food. The people that I asked to come and entertain or to get pieces of history. It was just a beautiful thing to see. And so this year we are especially glad. I'm turning the reins over. We're having a huge celebration in Fredericksburg at the Nats Stadium. And it's really exciting to see my dream, my baby come to fruition.

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So what do you feel is the next step with Juneteenth becoming so recognized? Well I think the next step is try to keep it from becoming commercialized. I think the next step is to keep the true essence and the spirit of those people that struggled and lost tears and blood to keep their spirit alive. That's my fear, that it's gonna become so commercialized that we're gonna lose the true essence. So thank you so much for your time. Thank you for your contribution. So, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you so much.