Maj. Wesley Furlong

Juneteenth is a new holiday for most people in Melrose and for much of the northern United States. Yet over a century ago, one of the most important celebrations in the calendar of Black Boston was a similar commemoration of the end of enslavement, the anniversary of the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, observed each January 1st. The chief organizer of those festivities for many years was Major Wesley Furlong of 47 Sanford Street.

 

This event was personal for him. He had been born into slavery in West Virginia, escaped north, and then in 1863 enlisted in the Massachusetts 54th Volunteer Regiment, returning to the South to risk his life to liberate his brethren. After returning from the war, he became an organizer of the annual August 1st exercises in New Bedford, which commemorated the end of slavery in the British Caribbean—a holiday New Bedford’s Black community had adopted in the days when they could only aspire to the end of slavery in the United States.

 

Furlong moved to Melrose in 1891. Years before, he had been one of the founders of the Robert Gould Shaw Veterans Association, the 54th Regiment alumni unit. Throughout his nearly 30 years in Melrose, he served as their commanding officer, and it fell to him to organize the annual Emancipation Day parade and exercises. He also frequently served as a featured orator. He spoke at the Emancipation Day ball in 1899, saying:

“On this day 36 years ago, I went to the front. I was then and only then ready to go, for my people had been declared a free and independent race with the rights of citizenship. I went for my race, for my country, and for my God.  As the day is dear to me, so it is to all of us, and we, as an organization, determine, as long as we live, to keep this day before our people, and when we no longer care to do this, we should die.”

 

A little over a year ago it was suggested that the Beebe School, soon to be reopened, be renamed in honor of Major Furlong, a genuine hero who lived in the neighborhood and sent his children to the Gooch School, the direct institutional predecessor of the Beebe School. We repeat that call now. It could be accomplished by next Juneteenth.