The second annual Juneteenth celebration in Washington is taking cues from an Iowa ghost town whose significance carries on to this day.

Washington for Justice is hosting a Juneteenth Freedom Week from June 12-18th with the theme, “Be Like Buxton.” Located southwest of Oskaloosa, the coal mining town was founded in 1873 and became the largest coal town west of the Mississippi, according to the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs. In the 1905 census Buxton had 2,700 Black and 1,991 white residents, who Washington for Justice member Dan Henderson says coexisted peacefully, “They had a YMCA that was integrated, they had all of the restaurants and all of the country stores were integrated. And this was at a time of Jim Crow segregation, racial violence and a lot of hatred that was going on around Buxton. But within Buxton you would have found a sense of racial harmony, there just wasn’t that hatred and violence.”

The shift away from coal production led to the community’s demise in the 1920’s but several books and articles have been written about this utopia since then, including Rachelle Chase, who will be giving a free presentation on Friday, June 17th at the Washington Public Library followed by a book signing at Cafe Dodici, as part of Juneteenth Freedom Week. You can hear more about Buxton and the Juneteenth federal holiday during Wednesday and Thursday’s Halcyon House Washington Page.