Juneteenth Event Focuses on Activism for Change

The afternoon summer heat did not deter the commitment of marchers and protesters who celebrated Juneteenth and called for an end to systemic racism.

The Juneteenth Unity Event was held in Walnut Hill Park on June 20, 2020, to, as activists said, “observe and commemorate the emanicipation of former enslaved Africans in the Confederacy.”

The National Museum of African American History and Culture, says that, when the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863,

not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.

But the event was focused on activism needed to create change in the country today.

At the event, music played at the Darius Miller Bandshell, while people visited voter registration and information booths on the park road below.

Young people read aloud the stories of Black Americans killed by police violence in the country or whose pleas for aid from police from violence were ignored.

Then protesters organized into a march around the park of the historic city park. Marchers walked in silence, as ministers leading them read the names of Black and Latino people killed by police violence.

The event was the latest of numerous events and much activism going on in New Britain in recent weeks, as people are calling for an end to racism and racist institutions and for equality.

Massive protests have been ongoing nationwide, including in New Britain, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. The killing of Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, other African Americans and, most recently, Rayshard Brooks, have sparked vigorous protests against ongoing racism in the nation.

Perhaps two thousand people marched through the streets of New Britain on Sunday, May 31st, 2020, in an historic protest for change in society and an end racist inequality and violence. Protests and activism in the city have continued since, while activists are pressing for reforms against racism and inequality.