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Here's how Syracuse is celebrating....
From Sunday's Syracuse Post Standard. I like it because it's a nice portrait of a community celebration and also provides some basic background about the holiday and its significance.
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Saluting black history
Juneteenth kicks off 10 a.m. Friday with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall.
Sunday, June 13, 2004
By Cammi Clark
Staff writer
Syracuse's annual Juneteenth festival will be an entertaining history lesson.
Roving actors will portray characters, such as Harriet Tubman, and perform snippets from 100 years of social changes for African-Americans and American society Saturday as they roam in and out of an expected crowd of more than 15,000 in Clinton Square.
Actors will sing freedom songs, recite monologues and tell stories that highlight African-American participation in the Civil War and the civil rights movement.
The two-day event, which begins at 10 a.m. Friday with a flag-raising ceremony at City Hall, commemorates June 19, 1865, the day slaves in Texas heard the news of their freedom - more than two months after the Civil War ended.
"It's an educational fun thing," said Elizabeth Pratt, a planner with Events Company, Juneteenth's planner. "You have these roving acting troupes who are teaching instead of just acting."
Some of the events planned for Juneteenth include the honoring of 15 community leaders Friday at the Southwest Community Center during an ancestral ceremony. Some of the honorees include Willie Mae Spears, James Matthews, Will Morgan and Margaret Ware.
"The purpose is to acknowledge people who have contributed to African culture," said Aduke Branch, coordinator of ancestral ceremony.
Saturday's celebration begins at noon with a parade at Tallman and South Salina streets.
Umoja Vaughn, coordinator of the parade, said Juneteenth is the oldest celebration of the end of slavery. Slaves in Texas received the news of their freedom nearly two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Juneteenth, Vaughn said, celebrates African-American history and culture. The parade, she said, is a way to remember the struggles and changes in African-American and American history.
This year's festival will cost about $160,000, Pratt said. Some of the major corporate sponsors include JP Morgan Chase, Budweiser, M&T Bank, Total Care, Time Warner Cable, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Fidelis Care.
"I don't only expect Syracusans to come. I would like to see people from Rochester and all over," Vaughn said.
Last edited by cookie; June-19th-2004 at 01:10 PM.
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