Thursday, October 1, 2026
It has taken more than 150 years, but the significance of June 19, 1865, has finally been recognized nationwide. Last week, just days before the anniversary of the end of slavery in the United States, Juneteenth became a national holiday, though some Glen Cove residents had not known about the date until recently.
“I never heard about it until this year,” said Pandora Hersey, 79, of Glen Cove.
Hersey grew up in the South before moving to Glen Cove after graduating from college in 1964. Born and raised in Virginia, she said that segregated schools and restaurants were the norm in the 1940s, ’50s and ’60s, and racist policies prevailed at shopping centers and other public places. The schools for Black students were “inferior,” in terms of the buildings and the quality of supplies, she said, “but we had really good teachers.”
Hersey recalled that Black high school students had to walk a mile or two from their homes to get to a bus stop, because buses wouldn’t pick them up, even though white children were picked up at their homes.
Hersey attended Virginia State University in Petersburg, an all-Black college at the time, where she took part in marches for equality. On one occasion stayed home sick, and many students were arrested. The police officers were “not nice” to the students that day, she recalled, adding, “It was a blessing that I was not there.”
She recounted racist policies at stores at the time, noting that Black people had to wait to make their purchases until any white shoppers had been served first. “It was really a rough situation, but we learned to deal with it,” Hersey said. “We learned to pray much and serve God, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and move on.”
Her husband, Adrian Hersey, is pastor of the Jesus Is My Boss Ministry, a nonprofit headquartered in Glen Cove that provides spiritual and material support to those in need through outreach. The Herseys attended a small ceremony last Saturday morning commemorating Juneteenth, held at the home of Glen Cove City Councilman Gaitley Stevenson-Mathews and Jim Stevenson-Mathews.
Adrian Hersey, 86, said a prayer and recalled serving in the Army at a base in Georgia in the 1950s. Born and raised in Glen Cove, he had never experienced such blatant racism. Once, he said, he got onto a public bus and sat in an empty seat behind the driver. “The driver just sat there,” Hersey recounted, “and I thought something must be wrong with the bus.”
He noticed other Black people sitting in the back, and figured that’s where they had chosen to sit. “Finally, the driver said, ‘I can’t pull off until you move to the back of the bus,’” Hersey said.
The Juneteenth tribute included a changing of the flags outside the Stevenson-Mathews home, a tradition that began a year ago, according to the councilman. “The changing of the flags came about in response to wanting to pay tribute to the first responders, health care workers and front-line workers,” Stevenson-Mathews said, “and outwardly show appreciation for what they were doing during the pandemic.”
Now, he said, he and his husband invite friends, neighbors and others in the community to come by as they take down a flag dedicated to a cause and replace it with another. “We swap out the flags every two to three weeks to shine a light on various important causes,” Stevenson-Mathews said, “or to pay respect to different aspects of American history or groups, and to show how the history relates to us in Glen Cove today.”
The couple have flown flags recognizing Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Women’s History Month and Pride Month, as well as those honoring national heritages such as Polish and Italian Americans.
The councilman said he became familiar with Juneteenth while living in Dallas in the 1990s. The celebration has gained national recognition in recent years, though Texans have been observing it since the late 1800s. While most slaves were freed on Jan. 1, 1863, with President Abraham Lincoln’s signing of Emancipation Proclamation, it took over two years for the news to reach Texas. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers arrived in Galveston, announced the end of the Civil War and read aloud an order that freed the state’s quarter-million enslaved Black people.
Last Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved a measure making Juneteenth a federal holiday. Stevenson-Mathews invited people to join him for a short ceremony to mark the occasion. The attendees included the Herseys’ daughter, Wanda Hersey.
“Our community is rich with history, and it is thanks to leaders in our community like Pastor and Mrs. Hersey that we have the opportunity to learn, grow and appreciate the rich tapestry that makes up our beautiful North Shore and our beautiful city,” Stevenson-Mathews said. “We felt it was important to take time to remember and pay tribute to this important day in the history of our nation.”
Pandora Hersey said she was hopeful that the holiday would help raise awareness of the struggles of Black people in this country, but, she added, there is still work to do on the local level to combat racism. Though there may not be discriminatory laws on the books or blatant examples of racism, she has still experienced it in Glen Cove, with people who have been “outright mean” to her and her children.
“After a while, you stop and think, if they’re carrying around that much meanness, they’re carrying a big load,” she said. “And it will come down on their heads eventually, and they will have to answer to God. I can understand why church is the backbone of communities, particularly in the South, because you deal with a lot of things.”
