The City of Newburgh announces its Third Annual Juneteenth celebration will be held on Sunday, June 18th in Downing Park from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. The City’s Juneteenth celebration will include music, food, bounce houses, remembrances, and exciting live performances from the Newburgh Armory Dancers and the National Double Dutch Team.
Juneteenth gets its name from combining “June” and “Nineteenth.” According to the White House: “After the Union Army captured New Orleans in 1862, slave owners in Confederate states migrated to Texas with more than 150,000 enslaved Black persons. For 3 years, even after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved Black Americans in Texas remained in brutal bondage, immorally and illegally deprived of their freedom and basic dignity. On June 19, 1865 — over 2 years after President Lincoln declared all enslaved persons free — Major General Gordon Granger and Union Army troops marched to Galveston, Texas, to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation and free the last enslaved Black Americans in Texas. Those who were freed from bondage celebrated their long-overdue emancipation on June 19.”
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