Juneteenth Staff Celebration at Latham (Part 1): “Metamorphosis”

Latham Centers hosted over 65 staff, friends, and family in an inspiring virtual Juneteenth Celebration on Monday. This is just the beginning; a conversation now, and a way to change the future.

Monique Williams, Latham’s Director of Health and Wellness, kicked off the inaugural event at Latham, sharing a brief history of Juneteenth and reading parts of the Emancipation Proclamation. Arthur Gregg, who serves at the University of Texas at Dallas as Assistant VP, Multicultural Affairs and Director, Multicultural Center, gave a beautiful synopsis of the Juneteenth state of mind and the importance of the celebration within the Latham Centers community:

“We must continue with this thought of a Juneteenth state of mind. We need to tackle perseverance and tenacity,” Arthur said. “Until we are all free, we’ve got a lot of work to do. I can’t wait to see what the next years bring.”

Arthur then introduced GNO, and the eloquent and uplifting poetry from three talented award-winning poets began.

GNO, a world-renowned poet who serves as Assistant Director of Student Life Programs at the University of Texas, Dallas, affected attendees to our core with poems that included some humor – like “Black Superhero” – and poems bringing us to the roots of some of the recent issues in America. We’ve included a short video of his poem, “Metamorphosis of America.” 

In tomorrow’s blog, we’ll share highlights of the poetry of Reign, King Shakur, and ShySpeaks – artists who joined us for what will be an annual Juneteenth event at Latham Centers. Coming together as a community to commemorate and celebrate Juneteenth was powerful. We join Arthur in his optimism and his call for work to be done, and we close with the words of GNO: “It’s time for a change, time for a change, time for a change, America.”