Worth The Drive

HOOSIER FACT

Let Freedom Ring

Juneteenth recognition gives Lyles Station another reason to celebrate

ON JUNE 17, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a bill establishing Juneteenth as a federal holiday.

Celebrated annually on June 19 to remember when the Emancipation Proclamation reached Galveston, Texas, and freed the last enslaved people in the U.S. in 1865, this year’s event at Lyles Station, Indiana’s last remaining Black settlement from the Civil War era, was especially poignant.

“We felt that we were definitely blessed to have this celebration with the national figure, and it’s a legal holiday,” says Stanley Madison, chairman of the Lyles Station Historic Preservation Corporation.

Evansville Living spoke to Madison about Lyles Station in the May/June 2010 issue. Since then, the settlement has built a shelter house donated by Toyota Motor Manufacturing Indiana, an 1830s log cabin, and a new greenhouse. The next milestone will be the Lyles Consolidated School’s 100th anniversary in February 2022.

The school has operated as a museum since 2003 and remains a symbol of what Madison says is Lyles Station’s main focus: education and awareness about the impact of its farmers on southern Indiana.

“African American farmers were really not written about in the history books, and it wasn’t recognized in the public eye until here in the 21st century,” he says. “The individuals that leave our museum get a chance to hear some really valuable history with opening the eyes of what African Americans have contributed as free African American farmers.”

Lyles Station remains home to about 15 families, including Madison, whose family has farmed there for three generations. More than 200 years old, the site will continue to host Juneteenth events as the holiday gains national recognition the Black community has given it since 1865. — BY DALLAS CARTER

LANA BURTON

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READ Evansville connects Tri-State children to books

BY DALLAS CARTER

In March 2020, students lost access to books as their schools closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That summer, retired Evansville Vanderburgh School Corp. teacher/administrator Lana Burton coordinated book donations to children at EVSC sites and those receiving food from the weekly giveaways by Feed Evansville at Hartke Pool. Along with Patricia Weinzapfel, Burton turned these book drives into READ Evansville, which gave away more than 18,000 books in 2020.

READ Evansville expanded in 2021 to include summer programming after partnering with the EVSC Foundation, EVSC schools, YMCA of Southwestern Indiana, Dream Center Evansville, Evansville Vanderburgh Public Library, Koch Family Children’s Museum of Evansville, Boys & Girls Club of Evansville, Young & Established, Boom Squad, Inc., United Way of Southwestern Indiana’s COVID-19 Crisis Response Fund of the Greater Evansville Region, and more. The organization and its partners were honored in Leadership Everyone’s 2021 Celebration of Leadership awards in the project/program category.

“Our goal was to get those families in need books so that their young people, once the pandemic hit and everything shut down, would have something else to do at home,” says Burton, who had a 40-year career in the EVSC, including as principal at Culver Elementary School and Harper Elementary School. “Research shows that students who read do better. We all know that once we read and know how to read, we’re able to graduate from school, we’re able to get a job and hold onto it, we’re able to become productive citizens.”

The group’s summer programs, which organizers hope to expand next year, engage students in discussions and activities about fire safety, socialemotional health, food and nutrition, and STEM. Middle school- and high school-aged children, most of whom are enrolled in READ’s partner programs also have their own activities centered around a book of the month.

Not only do students expand their reading, but Burton says the programs provide them with additional social and mentoring connections. The Evansville native also says the response to the program has been overwhelming.

“When we were passing out books last summer and we would see families that would come every week to get food, they were just excited to get the books. They would make comments to us about how much their children enjoyed the books,” says Burton. “So that’s the best part — knowing that boys and girls were enjoying the books and also the family members were enjoying the books.”