NEW ORLEANS — Thousands of people celebrated Juneteenth. Leodia Day visited Whitney Plantation two days before Juneteenth, where she says her great-grandparents were enslaved.
Juneteenth honors the end of slavery in the United States.
"I am a natural holistic healer, my great grandmother, who is Maree Alfred was a healer on the plantation at Whitney Plantation," Day told Eyewitness News.
Day's great-grandmother was enslaved on the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana, where she worked as a cook and healer.
She says her great-grandfather helped build the church on the plantation.
"So I am all through Whitney," she said.
Which is why she felt it important to visit the land her ancestors once worked while enslaved. The plantation now acts as a museum, sharing the story from the perspective of the formerly enslaved.
She wanted to have a spiritual connection to the place her ancestors once lived, sharing her journey on TikTok.
"I felt empowered, I felt free, I felt I was her hope her dream for what she wanted for her daughter," she said.
Now practicing holistic therapies herself, she says her great-grandmother was her inspiration.
"That's my biggest dream, I made her proud."
Juneteenth is a day she says we should all embrace, to ensure equality for all, "We are our ancestors' dream, we are their hope and so we need to pass that same thing down to our kids and grandkids."
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