By name alone, Princess Fletcher seemed destined to wear a crown. But the 16-year-old community ambassador wowed the crowd with an original poem before being presented as Miss Juneteenth Oregon on Saturday at the 51st annual Juneteenth Oregon celebration in North Portland’s Lillis-Albina Park.
She says the Juneteenth celebration of freedom, the “sisterhood” among pageant contestants and her life story, coming to the U.S. from Nigeria when she was 10, have galvanized her to speak up to empower people and promote community service.
“Juneteenth represents liberation, unity and celebration of all Black excellence, empowerment in our progress and how far we have come,” said Fletcher, who lives in Northeast Portland. “We are not there yet, but a lot has changed.”
Juneteenth, also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day, is a federal holiday that commemorates the end of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865 — more than two months after Confederate general Robert E. Lee surrendered and two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — Union troops arrived in the coastal city of Galveston, Texas, to enforce the emancipation order.
Portland’s two-day Juneteenth festival with food, live music, kids activities and vendors at Lillis-Albina Park, at North Flint Avenue and Russell Street, concludes at 6 p.m. Sunday.
1/92
Princess, a junior at McDaniel High School, credits her father, Richard Fletcher, for her love of basketball, and her mother, Fola Fletcher, for encouraging her to participate in the pageant and embrace “my potential and love for myself.”
She said it warmed her heart to see little girls smiling and waving as she passed by them in the Saturday morning parade. “It never occurred to me that I might love doing pageants,” she said, “but this one is about building each other up.”
The benefits of the pageant, she said, will last longer than the day she was crowned. “I learned that you can reach beyond the limits you see for yourself or others may place on you. By stepping out, and getting myself out there, which is not the norm for me, I learned that I have the power and strength to break through limits,” she said. “I want others to know that they have that power in them.”
Princess, a runner up for 2022 Miss Juneteenth Oregon, served as an ambassador for the nonprofit Juneteenth Oregon organization, which honors the legacy of Clara Peoples, a beloved community leader who organized Oregon’s first Juneteenth celebration in 1945.
Princess said leaders of the Miss Juneteenth leadership program saw the responsibility she took on, and rewarded her with the title this year.
She hopes to attend a historically Black college or university — she’s looking at North Carolina A&T — and pursue a career in law or medicine.
“I don’t know for certain what path I’ll go one, but I know I want to help people,” she said. “At the end of the day, I want to do something to help the community who got me to where I am.”
— Janet Eastman | 503-294-4072