BEMIDJI -- Project for Change hosted a free event for the community to celebrate and memorialize Juneteenth on Saturday, June 19.
About 100 people attended the event held near the Rail River Folk School on Lake Irving. The program commemorated the abolishment of slavery with speakers, live music, dancing, bagged lunches, booths featuring area organizations and games for children.
"Whether it's with enslaved people, whether it's with Native American people, whether it's with Asian Americans -- whatever group it is -- often times we are constantly fighting for our place at the table and for us to gain some form of freedom that has been delayed or denied to us," said Project for Change's Alyson Allen at the event.
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Juneteenth, celebrated annually on June 19, is also known nationally as Emancipation Day or Freedom Day, and symbolizes the end of slavery in America. U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris signed a bill into law on Thursday, June 17, to make June 19 a federal holiday commemorating the end of the legal enslavement of Black Americans.
"For me, as a daughter of Jamaican immigrants, Juneteenth is important and I would like to think that for every American, Juneteenth should be important to them too," Allen said.
Juneteenth commemorates the reading of President Abraham Lincoln's General Order No. 3 on June 19, 1865, in Texas, which announced the freeing of enslaved people. Though Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation had outlawed slavery more than two and a half years earlier, there were few Union troops in Texas to enforce the order.
Due to its historical roots, Texas was the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official holiday in 1980. Since then, 48 states and Washington, D.C. recognize Juneteenth as either a state or ceremonial holiday. Prior to this week, Hawaii and South Dakota had not yet officially recognized the day.
Juneteenth celebrations nationwide typically include prayer and religious services, speeches, educational events, family gatherings, picnics, festivals and dancing. Awareness of Juneteenth has seemingly grown in recent years following nationwide racial justice movements.
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