Dave Stafford
Here’s something you don’t hear an elected official say every day: “We’re not perfect … We make mistakes. And obviously, we made a big one here.”
That was Brown County Commissioner Ron Sanders on Oct. 2, and the context was an apology — something else seldom seen from public officials.
And that really is a shame. Because what happened when Sanders said these things in a public forum went beyond saving face. It was somewhere in the neighborhood of transformational.
Commissioner Jerry Pitman said the commissioners aimed to “correct” their earlier decision that had established a made-up county employee holiday for June 19, 2025, called “Brown County Employee Appreciation Day”. Not coincidentally, that day also is the federal holiday of Juneteenth, which celebrates the end of slavery in our nation.
We could dwell on the commissioners’ prior decision, and some likely will, but that would somewhat miss the point.
The point we should not miss is this: These elected officials, representing a county that is 96% white, wasted little time recognizing, and then owning, their mistake.
They didn’t just do that, though. They also decided to do the right thing, too — becoming apparently the first county in Indiana to recognize Juneteenth as a paid holiday for county employees.
When they did, the audience at the commissioners meeting — several of whom had come intending to do some correcting of their own — applauded.
“I just applaud you, and I thank you,” Eunice Trotter later told commissioners, noting that the decision to recognize Juneteenth as a holiday for county workers makes Brown County “I believe the first county in Indiana to do this. … That word really should get out because this is really something significant, what you’ve done today.”
Trotter is director of the Black Heritage Program at Indiana Landmarks in Indianapolis. She is a dynamic force, spokeswoman and educator for this mission and for the need to preserve a history that has been lost or obscured for generations, and in some cases, centuries. Including, she said, in Brown County.
Trotter’s detective work through this program has documented some of the little-known history of Black settlers who were in Brown County, she said, likely even before the state’s founding. There is so much more to learn about this, and so much to be gained by doing so.
Still, during her presentation, Trotter acknowledged that deep dives into history can be “uncomfortable.” That’s particularly so when that history leads us to see, recognize and confront past wrongs.
That is, in part, what Juneteenth does. The holiday recognizes that even though President Abraham Lincoln ordered slaves freed during the Civil War with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, that act did not end slavery. Many slaves were not freed until Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, to free more than 250,000 Black people who had remained enslaved. The day that happened — two-and-a-half years after Emancipation, on June 19, 1865 — is the origin of Juneteenth.
This, Trotter said, is not a “Black holiday.”
“… Juneteenth celebrates not only the emancipation of African Americans, but of this nation,” she said during her brief historical presentation to commissioners. “Thousands of white people were killed over this issue of slavery. … This is a celebration not just for African Americans but for our entire nation.”
Atonement is powerful, if we allow it to be. It can be transformational in our own lives and in the lives of our wider communities.
We all make mistakes. Some are more easily corrected than others, but no matter how large our mistakes, there is good — sometimes transformational good — in recognizing and correcting them.
So, what is the plan for Juneteenth next year, Brown County?
Dave Stafford is editor of The Brown County Democrat. Contact him at [email protected].
