MEXIA, Texas — Residents in Mexia lined the streets for their annual Juneteenth parade and celebration, which has been celebrate there since the 1870s. This year is the 40th-year remembrance of the three teenagers who drowned to death while handcuffed on a police boat.
Those teenagers, Carl Baker, Anthony Freeman and Steven Booker are known as the Comanche Three.
"It's something that shouldn’t have happened, everybody else that wasn’t handcuffed is alive. But them three were tragically killed," said Donta Baker, the nephew of Carl Baker.
He says that his entire family celebrates his uncle each and every year and that Juneteenth has always been a special holiday for them. He was joined by his cousin, Zarride Milus.
"Super nice guy man, they always told us that he liked to play with his nephews and nieces and everything," Milus said.
President Joe Biden signed legislation to make Juneteenth a Federal Holiday on Thursday, but the pair of cousins think it should have happened a long time ago.
“This is Black history that's in our family that a lot of people don’t know," Bakers said. "My kids are just now knowing the story about it. It’s something that everybody will get to recognize and know. Back in the day, Comanche was a big scenery with everybody coming from everywhere.”
He wants to make sure that this history is not forgotten. He said most kids in school are just taught about Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Rosa Parks, but are not taught the full history.
"It's other Black history that doesn’t get taught and written about until somebody else puts it in the limelight and history, but it's been going on. So it's something that needs to be taught and put in the books," he said.