Juneteenth Celebration Held

Evansville with the story.

On saturday afternoon, a juneteenth celebration was held in the 200 block of waggoner avenue.

The just felt the need and urgency with everything that is going on in our community to come together and put this event on.

We just felt that within the african american community, it's an event that's pretty much always celebrated.

And on different scales, sometimes its just families getting together in the back yard and sometimes it's just the african american museum doing things as well.

Outside of the black vendors that we have we also definitely have a clothing giveaway that we have, free to the public.

We all thought it was a good way to share some of the more positive aspects of our culture.

Juneteenth commemorates the day back in 1865 when union soldiers arrived in galveston texas, spreading the news that people who were enslaved were now free under federal orders.

A day organizers hope to see observed more at the national level.

When the declaration of independence was signed in july of 1776, slaves still weren't free.

It wasn't until 1863 that they were free but it still took another two years for the slaves in texas to find out.

There was over 250,000 slaves that were unaware that we were free so, this event started down in galveston, texas.

It's important for people to understand that over two years after the executive order was signed that there were still an extremely large population of the country that still was not considered free.

And still was being forced into slave labor.

And organizers believe that everyone attending can receive important lessons in history and togetherness as they hope to continue this event for years to come.

Love and unity, and that's our only way forward, our only positive step forward is love for your community, love for your neighbor and unity and everybody coming together.

Reporting in evansville, andrew garcia 44 news the president plans