Rentie: Juneteenth is an opportunity for us to love

Jun. 18—Caesar Rentie said he looks forward to coming back home for some time showing McAlester and surrounding communities love.

The Hartshorne High School graduate and former NFL player will speak at Saturday's Juneteenth Festival in McAlester and said he hopes people come to have fun, learn and grow together.

"Juneteenth is an opportunity for us to love," said Rentie, who is now vice president of pastoral services with Methodist Health Systems in Dallas. "That's what it's about — it's about what is it that we pay attention to and how do we love. And that's why it's really important for me to come back."

The Juneteenth Festival is set to start at 10 a.m. June 19 at Michael J. Hunter Park in McAlester with carnival games for kids, guest speakers, fun music and good food for everyone available.

Juneteenth, short for June 19, is the holiday commemorating the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 — two years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation — to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed.

Rentie plans to speak at the Saturday event about unity and said he enjoys returning to Pittsburg County and his hometown to share his life experiences.

He graduated from Hartshorne and went on to play football at the University of Oklahoma from 1983 to 1987. Rentie played offensive tackle on OU's 1985 National Championship team — playing along Troy Aikman, Jamelle Holieway, Brian Bosworth and more.

It was at OU that Rentie said he first learned about Juneteenth from Andre Johnson, a defensive back from Houston.

"We were working out in the summer and he was getting ready to go home to celebrate Juneteenth and I was like 'what's Juneteenth?'" Rentie said.

Rentie said it was similar to how he first learned about the Tulsa Race Massacre — where an angry white mob in 1921 burned 30 blocks of a successful Black community in Tulsa's Greenwood District and killed what historians estimate is between 100 and 300 because bodies were quickly buried in mass graves without documentation.

He said teammate Spencer Tillman, a running back from Tulsa, told him about Black Wall Street and he was stunned that it wasn't part of the curriculum for American history.

Rentie said those significant events in America's history can help teach future generations that racism exists and everyone must work to end it.

He said the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence — which states "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" — is something Americans can reference in promoting unity, while also reflecting on how the nation has run contrary to that founding principle.

"What's important to a democracy like the United States of America is the ability to have individual human flourishing," Rentie said. "You're taking the gifts that God has given you, things that you hold of interest and they give you meaning, and you use those gifts in a way that allows you to thrive and flourish."

The Chicago Bears drafted Rentie with the 189th pick in the seventh round of the 1988 NFL draft before he played for one year and played in other professional leagues.

Rentie felt drawn to ministry after his playing career and earned a master's degree in theological studies from Texas Christian University in 1997.

He served as senior pastor for Acadia Park United Methodist 2003-2011 and is now associate pastor for First United Methodist Mansfield.

Rentie is married to Cynthia Rentie and the couple has three children, Dennis, Carra and Chloe — all of which he is extremely proud.

He said the nation can ensure a just and unified future if people acknowledge history, then bring healing to everyone who suffered from it.

"If we don't, then those words in the Declaration don't mean anything," Rentie said. "It's just empty rhetoric."

Contact Adrian O'Hanlon III at aohanlon@mcalesternews.com