On Saturday June 18th from 4:00pm to 6:00pm, Community Education for Transformation (CET) is hosting a family-friendly commemoration of Juneteenth at the gazebo at the Geneva lakefront next to the Finger Lakes Welcome Center.
Juneteenth, which was made a federal and local holiday in 2021, is a day commemorating the end of enslavement in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger and over 1,800 Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to officially inform the enslaved Black population that they were legally free. The Emancipation Proclamation was nearly two and a half years old by this point (President Lincoln having issued it on January 1, 1863) and the Civil War had been over for more than two months, but white slaveholders had intentionally withheld this information from those they were enslaving.
CET’s event will include a deeper look into this history, as well as music and storytelling. Speakers will include Jess Farrell, Janette Gayle, Akim Hudson, and Preston Pierce. Attendees are encouraged to bring picnics, blankets, chairs, etc.
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