Juneteenth

On Saturday, June 15th Perkins Center joins Moore Unity and Curate Noir, Inc. to celebrate Juneteenth Freedom Day. This event will feature music and dance performers, poetry, community art making, family-friendly activities, a bounce house, and food and vendor offerings from some of our favorite local Black-owned businesses.

That paragraph was taken from the e-mail events post from Perkins Art Center; please check their web site to find which location is hosting Collingswood or Moorestown and the times.

I would like to add my own thoughts on Juneteenth. Annette Gordon Reed wrote a wonderful memoir called JUNETEENTH which I strongly recommend that you read, even if you can't attend any events to celebrate. If you don't know what Juneteenth is, it is the day that Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to tell the still enslaved people there that the Civil War had ended and the Emacipation Proclamation had granted freedom. The holiday is often called Emancipation Day and Freedom Day. Since reading and writing were punishable forbidden skills to enslaved people by the plantation owners who held them in slavery, they were not able to get the news. Can you possibly imagine the joy of a peope who had hoped for a hundred or more years to be freed from the violently enforced bond of enslavement that they were finally free? Ever since that day there have been celebrations incuding parades and parties and backyard barbecues to remember that historic day.

Happy Juneteenth all my friends and neighbors, freedom for some is freedom for all!

wrightj45@yahoo.com