Generational Reflection & ​“Silent Solidarity” Mark Whitneyville Commons Juneteenth

On Juneteenth, a day that is typically celebratory, Lee Lee and Mark McKnight hosted a vigil on the lawn of the Whitneyville Cultural Commons.

“I mean, we’re not black, so it’s really not our place to celebrate,” said Lee Lee McKnight. ​“We wanted to honor the lives of people who are no longer with us.”

Plus, the McKnights have Quaker roots. ​“Silent solidarity speaks to us,” said Lee Lee McKnight.

The couple said that they wanted to hold an in-person event because they had been struggling to figure out how to physically show their support during the pandemic.

The McKnights also expressed the importance of exposing their kids to some of the realities of police violence.

“It comes naturally to kids to idolize the police,” Mark McKnight said. ​“I remember at one point our son said he wanted to become a police officer.” He attributed part of that idolization to Lego city kits, which feature smiling Lego policemen as fixtures of formulaic landscapes.

With school disrupted due to the pandemic, he also pointed out that peer-to-peer and student to teacher communication has been difficult.

Instead, most of the conversation has been happening around the dinner table each night.

At 8 p.m. on Friday, the McKnights reserved an hour for silent reflection rather than active discussion.

The McKnights said they only expected their family and a couple of neighbors to show up. By 8:15, about 40 people spread across the lawn with candles in hand and six feet between them.

One of these people was Sally Hill, the associate director of the Eli Whitney Museum.

Hill stood by herself on the edge of the crowd. ​“Right now I prefer to stay on the outskirts of the situation,” she said.

She had wanted to attend an event in New Haven earlier that day, but wasn’t able to because of a work conflict. She’s also been worried about being in large crowds; her age means she’s a high Covid-19 risk.

However, she ​“liked the idea of being around people” on Juneteenth. The vigil was a small event located right near her work place. And she also liked the idea of a moment of silence.

“I just don’t know what to say right now,” she sighed. ​“Except that I’m embarrassed.”

Hill still highlighted protests and ​“yelling and voting and screaming and pushing” as the foundation of progress.

When Hill was 8 years old in the 1950s, her family moved to Florida from New Jersey. ​“You’re gonna see some things that’ll bother you, but it’s up to you to decide what to do about it,” Hill’s mother said as they walked by segregated water fountains.

In the 1960s, Hill attended college in New York. When she first entered Skidmore, which was an all-girls school at the time, women needed their parents’ permission to leave campus and were not allowed to bring dates into dorm common rooms.

“By my second semester sophomore year, the only rule was that you couldn’t have a visitor more than three nights in a row,” Sally recalled, illustrating how rapidly social change took hold at that time.

The Kent State massacre happened when Hill was a junior. All of her finals were cancelled for two consecutive semesters.

“Our professors were really with us,” she said.

Though these issues were distinct from fights for racial equality, Hill said that the energy of a movement or a moment has to be realized in order to maintain momentum and create concrete change.

And like many, Hill said that ​“right now is our moment when we have people’s attention.”

Hill also works as an adjunct professor of graphic design at Southern Connecticut State University. She said she aims to find the same sense of rebellion that she remembers from her youth and instill it in her students.

Unlike Hill, who spent her 20s protesting against the Vietnam War and marching for civil rights, her students are often not even registered voters. And those who are registered still tell Hill that they don’t vote.

“These kids aren’t organized; they’re overwhelmed with debt and keeping their heads above water,” Hill said. ​“I’ve asked them why they don’t get angry or criticize my assignments. They said that I hold all the power. I had to tell them, ​‘No, you hold all the power!’”

Hill devotes class time to walking her students through voter registration because she says she believes that young people are the foundation and forefront of progress.

“All we can do as seniors is make ourselves useful to young people,” she reflected. ​“Now that I can’t be at the front, I have to be there on the sides, whether it’s supporting the movement financially, creating signage, or making phone calls.”

Hill said that ​“there’s a whole lot of generational knowledge and connection” held by those who lived through the early and mid 20th century. She also clarified that white people of any age ​“can’t say they understand” the realities of Black oppression. 

“I am always outside of the situation,” she said.

Laine Harris, the founder of the Whitneyville Cultural Commons, also considered his upbringing in the 1960s while thinking about more modern fights for racial justice and equity.

Harris grew up in Alabama, where he remembered being taught about state’s rights and the ​“heroism” of Robert E. Lee. Now, his nieces and nephews living in Texas are part of movements to take down confederate statues.

Harris and his partner, Jennifer Brosious, co-own Your Community Yoga Center on Putnam Avenue. Though they reported being in great health, they are both in their early 70s and are taking care of Harris’ mother, who is 95 and has Alzheimer’s.

The two stated they have mainly been trying to get involved in the Black Lives Matter movement through donations and petition signing.

They also supported the McKnight’s efforts to establish greater connection in the neighborhood, though Harris noted white neighbors’ tendency to ​“talk a lot of equality” without actively supporting their black and brown neighbors.

Harris, a musician, decided to found the Cultural Commons after years spent studying the musical scenes in Serbia and Macedonia. After years living as a self-described ​“tourist,” he decided to bring his interests home to Hamden.

“Everyone in the town was very supportive of the Cultural Commons,” he remembered, ​“until it meant that more people actually showed up.”

The commons provides a space for community building, public assembly, economic development, and cultural arts production. The McKnights renewed their vows there.

One of the primary purposes of the commons is to provide a place for people to just hang out and meet up with others.

However, when black members of the community started coming by the commons to play music and be with their friends, Harris said that white people in the neighborhood began bringing up zoning technicalities and minor issues despite their prior excitement about the building.

Though Harris said he didn’t want to go too deep into the unfortunate details, he did say that the commons is ​“here to welcome anybody and everybody, as long as they’re not professing hate.”

Friday’s vigil was meant as a simple gesture and a chance for individual reflection. Harris also shared one thing he’s learned from a lifetime of work pursuing economic and social justice: ​“The more you get involved, the more nuanced it gets.”