Juneteenth Celebration, March & Festival

The Blair Foundation and the Elite News hosts the inaugural Juneteenth Celebration, March and Festival on Saturday, June 19. The event begins at 10am at William Blair Jr. Park with a three-and-a-half-mile march and end at Fair Park with a festival featuring a Negro League Baseball exhibit, a hair show, a concert, and other various activities.

All programs and activities are free and open to the public. All local COVID-19 protocols will be followed in order to ensure the safety of the attendees.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, traveled to Galveston, Texas, to announce to over 250,000 enslaved people that they were free. President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation two and a half years earlier, but the word had not reached Texas. The Dallas Historical Society has the only known original copy of the General Orders, and they will be on display at the Hall of State during the Juneteenth Celebration.