‘We still come together’: Juneteenth gathering highlights traditions of Black Seminoles

Leaning against a winding and narrow stairwell stood Joi. She and her mother both have compostable plates loaded with spicy chili con carne swirled with pale yellow grits and piled on top of homemade cornbread with a preserved piece of cinnamony hoecake dusted with powdered sugar. 

“I’m saving the best for last!,” laughed Hope, Joi’s mom, when I pointed out she hadn’t touched her dessert. 

It’s early June, and the mother-daughter duo are a part of a 60-person crowd at Casa de Las Ofrendas in East Austin. They’re there for an event titled “Black Mexicans – A Juneteenth Celebration,” celebrating Black and Native history and spotlighting the Black Seminoles of Texas and Mexico as Juneteenth approaches. 

When I asked them what drew them to the night’s event, Joi told me that she wanted to stray from her usual Juneteenth celebrations.

“This would be something to learn more about Black and Native and Mexican culture and how those things all intermix,” she smiled.

Joi is Black, but she told me her great-great-grandmother was Seminole.

“I’m interested in learning more about their culture because it’s a part of our culture, too,” she said. 

Some who were attending the event had no previous knowledge of Black Seminoles or their history.

“This is my first time hearing about the Black Seminoles,” says one father of four. “I figured it would be a really good cultural lesson for our kids to learn.”

Windy Goodloe. Manoo Sirivelu/KUT News

So who are the Black Seminoles?

“Black Seminoles were Africans who held onto their Africanness, but also were culturally Native American in a lot of ways,” says Windy Goodloe. 

Goodloe is the secretary of the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery Association (SISCA) in Brackettville, TX. She’s in Austin with Corina Torralba Harrington, SISCA treasurer, to celebrate Juneteenth with Tacos of Texas host Mando Rayo. The three of them first met in 2023 when Rayo traveled to Brackettville and Nacimiento, Coahuila, Mexico when he traced the foodways of Black Seminoles in Texas.

Goodloe and Torralba – both Black Seminole – aren’t strangers to sharing information about their heritage. The two met fifteen years ago, when Torralba Harrington traveled to Brackettville to the Seminole Indian Scouts Cemetery to find her grandfather’s grave. Only then was Torralba formerly introduced to a name for her heritage.

Corina Torralba Harrington. Manoo Sirivelu/KUT News

“My grandfathers on both my mom and dad’s side were both Black Seminole,” she explains. “But we didn’t know ‘Seminole’, we just knew we were part Black.” 

In northern Mexico, one of the locations Black Seminoles fled to escape slavery, Torralba’s family would be referred to as mascogos. “Mascogo” is the Spanish word for a descendant of Black Seminoles.

Mascogos celebrate Juneteenth, better known as Día de los Negros or Diecenueve, just like Black Seminoles in the United States. Black Seminoles are predominantly located in Oklahoma, Florida, the Bahamas, and, of course, Texas.

Though their population stretches across the country and transcends borders, the ethnic group is held together by their distinct subculture, celebrations, and even their own language: Afro-Seminole Creole.

Juneteenth had long been celebrated before it became a federally-recognized holiday. Black Seminoles, much like Juneteenth, are only recently getting more attention despite having centuries’ worth of history.

That type of recognition can stir up a cocktail of emotions: What does that visibility feel like for people like Goodloe and Torralba Harrington?

“I don’t think it’s important for people to see us,” Goodloe admits. “I think it’s more about us seeing ourselves than how people see us.” 

Torralba Harrington agrees.

“When you know who you are and you know your history, it doesn’t matter what the government says you are,” Torralba Harrington adds. “If you know your history and your stories, that’s all that matters.”

And there, in that gathering of people to learn about and celebrate their culture, Goodloe sees the fruit of their work in passing on those stories and traditions.

“By us continuing to celebrate Juneteenth and Seminole days, we’re showing you that all of that happened to us,” Goodloe beams. “Look at us. We still come together.”

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