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FLORENCE-The 5th Annual Juneteenth Parade Celebration will be held in Florence on Thursday, June 18 in Downtown Florence for an evening honoring freedom, culture, and community. The parade starts at 6Pm in downtown Florence with the festivities at Wilson Park beginning from 7PM until 10PM.
There will be food vendors, with booths for vendors, kids activities as well as live music. This event is open to everyone. Come out enjoy the park and celebrate community.
Juneteenth – also known as Freedom Day, Jubilee Day, Liberation Day, and Emancipation Day – is a holiday celebrating the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States.
“Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House two months earlier in Virginia, but slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas—until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.”
Media Release/Melissa Hardin
