Anchorage Assemblyman Chris Constant was not an invited speaker at the 2022 Juneteenth event at the Delaney Park Strip on Saturday. But that didn’t stop him: He grabbed the microphone and, to a crowd of celebrants marking the end of slavery in America, went through a checklist of things that “white men” who are “privileged” can to do make up for the inequities of America.
The organizers, according to numerous sources, were uncomfortable with what were characterized to Must Read Alaska as inappropriate remarks for the occasion, remarks that appeared to be directed at Mayor Dave Bronson.
Indeed, Constant spoke after Bronson had welcomed the crowd of hundreds who were enjoying food booths, music, and family time in recognition of the anniversary of General Order No. 3 by Union Army Gen. Gordon Granger on June 19, 1865, proclaiming freedom for enslaved people in Texas, the last enslaved people in the continental United States. (Slavery persisted among the Tlingit Indians in Alaska until the early 1900s.) It was generally a joyful occasion marred only by the one speaker — Constant — who had to focus on racism, rather than emancipation.
It’s not the first time Constant has made a group uncomfortable. In 2020, an Anchorage rabbi testified that a planned drug rehab/homeless center at the Golden Lion Hotel was not compatible with the nearby Jewish Center preschool program. Assembly member Constant then brought up Nazi Germany and asked the rabbi to comment on whether the homeless were like the Jews under the Nazis, who should be rounded up and put behind a fence. Members of the Jewish community expressed dismay at his pointed remarks toward the rabbi, and in a subsequent week, Constant apologized.
