When Rhonda McDonald was deep into researching her family history in the middle of the night, uncovering stories she had never heard before, she says she would feel a tap on her shoulder. Sometimes a light would flicker or a cool breeze would move like a whisper through the house. Once she heard a baby cry.

McDonald says she believes her ancestors were reaching out in some way, like praying hands.

McDonald is the great granddaugher of Joseph Vance Lewis, one of the first African American lawyers in Houston and the first Black lawyer admitted to the bar of the U.S. Supreme Court. He settled in Freedmen’s Town, which was one of the nation’s most prosperous Black communities and one of the landmarks along the proposed Emancipation Trail, a 51-mile route from Galveston to Houston that marks the migration of former enslaved people to a place they could build a new life.

On this Juneteenth, McDonald and other descendants of African Americans who helped establish those landmarks celebrate a strong sense of connection to their roots and to Houston.

Juneteenth honors the day -- June 19, 1865 -- when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger arrived with hundreds of Black soldiers in Galveston to inform enslaved African Americans that they had been freed under the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been signed by President Abraham Lincoln more than two years earlier. But that proclamation only ended slavery in the states that had seceded; the entire country was not freed until December 1865, when the 13th Amendment was adopted.

Still, word spread slowly through the state to let enslaved Texans know they had been freed.

“I started researching my family history about 10 years ago, and it captivated me,” she said. “I would looked at Census records, historical files and old photos, and in doing that I believe I summoned their spirits. For a long time, I felt their presence in my home. I never felt scared, just proud. It felt like they were saying, ‘I’m with you.’”

To the descendants, Juneteenth is more than a cursory celebration but a chance to reflect on a rich legacy that has helped to shape history. On Wednesday, the Senate passed a bill to make it a national holiday. It needs to pass the House and be signed by the president to become law.

“As a child, Juneteenth was just an opportunity for us to be together over a great meal and have a good time and fellowship,” McDonald said. “But with all that transpired last year, it has a completely different meaning to me. I certainly began sharing stories with my children that I’ve never shared with them before. It will be something that will be as important to us as Easter and Christmas.”

Lewis, who was born into slavery, built a home for himself and his wife, Pauline Gray Lewis, at 1218 Wilson in Freedmen’s Town, now in the Fourth Ward. They married at the nearby Antioch Baptist Church. In Lewis’ autobiography, “Out of the Ditch: A True Story of an Ex-Slave,” he proudly describes the house as “the modern building which the author built for his queen.”

The house, which has deteriorated over the years, was purchased by the Rutherford B.H. Yates Museum in 2007. The museum has waged a campaign to raise money to save historic homes such as the Lewises’. But McDonald knows Houston isn’t kind to historic buildings. Often times, they make way for something shiny and new.

“In order to go forward, you have to be able to preserve some of history and some of what has paved the way for you to go forward,” she said.

‘Juneteenth means freedom’

At Emancipation Park, Jacqueline Whiting Bostic believes her great grandfather, Jack Yates, would be proud of the park today, despite the signs of gentrification, such as new townhome developments, looming nearby. Yates led freedmen to pool their money to buy the 10 acres of land as home for Juneteenth celebrations. Founded in 1872, Emancipation Park is the oldest park in the city.

Bostic serves on the board of the Emancipation Park Conservancy and has been lauded for her efforts to preserve Houston’s Black history. She also is a member of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church, where Yates was pastor. She says she enjoys walking the halls of the church, nestled in Freedmen’s Town, with the neon message of “Jesus Saves” glowing from its steeple.

“Juneteenth means freedom to me,” Bostic said. “It means that people of my birth and my community were allowed as citizens of the United States to be free, to live, to work and to do the things that other Americans were allowed to do, that they will no longer be enslaved. I know they would be happy to know that we are still taking part in the things that they started.”

In Galveston, where Juneteenth began, June Collins Pulliam lives in the same house as her parents, grandparents and great grandparents. All were members of Reedy Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a cornerstone of the island’s Juneteenth story.

From her front porch is a view of the Gulf. The air feels heavy with history.

Pulliam cradles a photo taken in 1885, of her family who had arrived on the island 20 years earlier. Her great-grandfather Horace Scull was just 5 years old.

Her mother, Izola Collins, a musician and educator who died in 2017 at age 87, wrote “Island of Color: Where Junteenth Started,” based on her great grandfather’s journals. The book captures the significance and pageantry of Juneteenth in the 1800s and early 1900s.

“Because of my family’s history on the island, I particularly feel that (the Juneteenth celebration) is a mixed bag,” Pulliam said. “There has been lots of progress that has taken place, a lot of opportunities that did not exist. I had some firsts of my own life, having been a child of the ’60s when the Civil Rights movement was in full bloom. I integrated my own elementary school a year after Ruby Bridges. There were many firsts after that. Those opportunities are something that I know represent progress. And yet, there is a mixed emotion because of the things we are still experiencing today.”

A legacy carries on

Just north of Galveston in Texas City was a settlement of freedmen cowboys who pooled their money to purchase several hundred acres of land to house their family and raise cattle. At 95, Vera Bell Gary is one of the oldest living descendants of the 1867 Settlement; she’s the granddaughter of settler Thomas Caldwell. Her father owned the settlement’s only grocery store. She lives in the family home where she grew up.

The Black cowboys who founded of the settlement were proud men who took care of their families and their neighbors, she said.

“This was the their community. No doubt we lived in a segregated community. It was referred to as ‘the Black settlement.’ Nevertheless, we all knew this was our place,” she said.

Today, many of the youth in the area carry on their legacy — riding horses in trail rides, rodeos and Juneteenth parades.

Legacy, leaving a mark, is what Juneteenth is about, McDonald said. And what her great grandfather Lewis would expect.

“He would want me to use my voice as he did,” she said. “I think he’d be proud of us, for sure, but he would want more and expect more. That’s just the truth.

“Their history and accomplishments are all embodied right in here in me. I’m a custodian of their legacy and I’m passing it on to my kids so they understand that we were not just slaves. We have always been so much more, and we always will be.”