RICHMOND, Va. -- The Elegba Folklore Society presents Juneteenth 2019, A Freedom Celebration, June 14 -16. The weekend celebration starts Friday, June 14 with a Symposium featuring Dr. Molefi Kete Asante, a Library of Congress History Maker and an authority on African world culture from 6pm - 10pm, at the Main Street Station. On Saturday, June 15, its Independence Day Our Way at the Manchester Dock, (Ancarrow’s Boat Landing - 1308 Brander Street) 3pm - 7pm with the Get Woke Youth Summit, music with DJ Drake, dance, food, shopping, art making, games and the Torch Lit Night Walk on the Trail of Enslaved Africans, at 7pm. Sunday, attendees are invited to pay Homage to the Ancestors at Richmond’s African Burial Ground on June 16 at 3pm.
For more details visit www.un.org or call the Elegba Folklore Society at 804/644-3900.
The Elegba Folklore Society writes: "Juneteenth is a freedom celebration that became a tradition when, on June 19, 1865, General Gordon Granger sailed into Galveston harbor and issued a proclamation that gave freedom to a quarter of a million blacks in Texas who were still in bondage 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation that President Abraham Lincoln issued was enacted on January 1, 1863. The tradition is so firmly rooted in Texas that it was made a state holiday in 1980, and Juneteenth has come to be regarded as the earliest African American holiday.
The freedom message reached different parts of America on various dates between 1863 and 1865, such as January 1 in Virginia, but migrated black Texans continued the Juneteenth celebration as they moved to cities in the North and across the country. Today, this holiday is observed from California to New York."
