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CELEBRATING FREEDOM AS WE ALL SHOULD.





Check out last year Juneteenth Festival Celebration



It was the eve of January 1, 1863, better known as “Freedom’s Eve,” the first Watch Night services took place.



On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect.


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At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in the Confederate States were declared legally free.



Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the south reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and spreading the news of freedom in the Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States. But 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.


Learn the History of Juneteenth

THIS DAY CAME TO BE KNOWN AS "JUNETEENTH," BY THE NEWLY FREED PEOPLE IN TEXAS.



Juneteenth Celebration represents..



A very important milestone in American History. When our nation finally and truly became the land of the free.
June 19.



History of Juneteenth in Tucson



Arizona Daily Star, June 14, 1904



The majority of African Americans who made their way to Arizona in the early 20th century came from Texas, and they brought with them this annual celebration of Black liberation. Juneteenth celebrations in Tucson began as informal gatherings hosted at local homes and outdoor picnic spots. In the early 1900s, folks from Tucson as well as delegations from Phoenix, Bisbee, Douglas, and other small towns traveled to Tucson for an annual celebration held at Clemmons Grove, the location of which is listed as “about six miles northeast of Tucson, along the Rillito River.”


Arizona Daily Star, June 20, 1908



wHAT IS juneteenth





As the United States of America finally wholeheartedly accepted Juneteenth as a national holiday in 2022, It is time we learn why this day is so important to the black community specifically but to every American.