Revivalist Flavor Marks NAACP’s Jubilee Day : History: Singing and speeches commemorate Lincoln’s signing of the proclamation that freed the slaves.

As a young girl, Sophia Williams listened to her grandfather’s stories of life as a slave. He told her how some blacks wept and clung to their masters out of loyalty after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.

In the eyes of 16-year-old Melanie Culver, that era is the stuff of history books, although she was aware of the proclamation as “the first political move in the black struggle for freedom and equality.”

She and Williams, a retired Lake View Terrace teacher, shared their differing perspectives before 200 people Sunday at the San Fernando Valley NAACP chapter’s 14th annual Jubilee Day, which celebrates the Jan. 1, 1863, signing of the document that declared freedom for slaves.

As the rain beat down outside, representatives of 19 churches across the Valley assembled in the Christ Memorial Church of God in Christ in Pacoima to sing along with a 50-voice choir, then cheer as the proclamation was read aloud. The celebration, with its revivalist flavor, marks the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People chapter’s first major event each year.

Part of the jubilee tradition is to ask the young and old to share their views on the proclamation. After recalling her grandfather’s observation that some slaves were leery of their sudden freedom, the 62-year-old Williams noted that many soon got their hopes up with Reconstruction period promises of “40 acres and a mule.”

“Have we received it yet?” she asked.

“No!” members of the audience shouted.

“After more than 100 years of freedom, we have a long way to go,” Williams concluded.

The teen-age Culver, in turn, urged Williams’ generation to pass along the songs and stories of the slave era recounted to them by their elders. “For many of us, these are our only links to the past,” she said.

The Rev. Henry Hearns, Lancaster’s mayor and the event’s keynote speaker, cited Civil War era history in discussing today’s problems, pointing to the forced separation of enslaved families as a foreshadowing of the breakup of many black families today. He called for resolve in keeping children, especially boys, at home and away from drugs and gangs.

Hearns also urged parents to play an active role in their children’s education. “Our children, without a doubt, need somebody to push them along,” he said. “Most of our children will go to school . . . and just bide the time. . . . You need to talk ‘can-do’ talk to your kids.”