Juneteenth Freedom Festival Planned by City Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities

The city Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities is planning its annual Juneteenth Freedom Festival.

The event, on Thursday, June 19th, is to be at Central Park from 5:00pm to 8:00pm.

The event is to feature the raising of the Juneteenth flag, information about Juneteenth history, a free community cookout, live music and information from local organizations.

Juneteenth is a national celebration of the end of slavery, won by the victory in the Civil War. The National Museum of African American History and Culture, has said 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.