Juneteenth: Celebrating the end of slavery

Daisy Century's electrifying reenactment of Harriet Tubman, the death-defying 19th-century abolitionist who led hundreds of slaves to freedom, highlighted Sunday's Juneteenth celebration at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Elkins Park.

Juneteenth celebrates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers enforced President Lincoln's 1863 Emancipation Proclamation in Texas, freeing its 250,000 slaves and signaling the end of slavery in the United States.

St. Paul's, at 7809 Old York Rd., is a self-described "deliberately multicultural church." It was built in the early 1860s by abolitionist Jay Cooke, who helped escaped slaves via the Underground Railroad station in the church basement.

Century said her years of depicting Tubman's life - from slavery to Moses-like freer of slaves to Union Army scout and spy - have inspired her to live courageously.

"I'm invincible now," the retired Philadelphia schoolteacher said, laughing. "I went out and got a black belt in karate, took violin and guitar lessons, and now I'm learning to be a pilot. I feel Harriet Tubman. Her spirit is within me."

At St. Paul's, Century had children and adults on the edge of their pews as she reenacted Tubman's life-threatening solo journey from slavery in Maryland to freedom in Pennsylvania, eluding the slave catchers she overheard saying: "When we catch her, we'll cut off her arms and legs. Then we'll hang her and burn her."

When Tubman finally made it here to freedom, she went back South to rescue her family and hundreds of other slaves. Whenever an escaping slave got scared and wanted to go back, she pulled out a pistol, held it to his head and said: "I'll kill you dead right here on the spot. Now who wants to go back?"

Century got a standing ovation when she exclaimed: "That Harriet Tubman wasn't born to be no slave and she didn't stay one, neither! No sir! She didn't stay one, neither!"

While Tubman was the abolitionist leading slaves to freedom, other African Americans were doing battle in the Civil War.

Robert Fuller Houston, 76, from the Third Regiment Infantry of the U.S. Colored Troops Civil War Reenactors, depicted his "first cousin, three generations removed," Sgt. William H. Carney of the 54th Regiment of the Massachusetts Voluntary Infantry, who suffered multiple wounds during the battle of Fort Wagner in Charleston Harbor, made famous in the film Glory.

"Sgt. Carney was the first African American awarded the Medal of Honor for most distinguished gallantry in action during the assault on Fort Wagner, July 18, 1863," Houston said.

"He was shot in the right arm and right hip and had two other wounds," he added. "The bullet was never removed from his right hip and it left him with a pronounced limp for the rest of his life."

Walking with a cane, Houston said that during the battle, where hundreds of the outnumbered, outgunned Union soldiers died, Carney became the flag bearer by accident.

"As Sgt. Carney approached the wall of the fort, he just happened to be nearby when the colors sergeant was shot down," Houston said, "so he grabbed the flag and continued to charge to the top of the parapet. He received wounds to his arm and hip while he held on to the flag. The bodies were piling up around him.

"When he got back to the encampment," Houston said, "he was greeted with loud hurrahs and huzzahs by his fellow soldiers. He told them, 'Boys, I only did my duty. The old flag never touched the ground.' "

Houston paused to reflect. "Sgt. Carney was wounded and had to crawl on the ground during the battle," he said, "so you have to do a little deductive reasoning about whether the flag actually ever touched the ground. But they were into a lot of braggadocio back then."

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