State College community members joined together on Saturday afternoon for an afternoon of music, dance, poetry, food and more to celebrate Juneteenth.
The block party on the 100 block of South Fraser Street and the Martin Luther King Jr. Plaza marked State College’s fifth annual commemoration of the holiday celebrating the emancipation of the last remaining enslaved African-Americans on June 19, 1865.
It was on that day, two months after the end of the Civil War, that Union troops enforced the emancipation of the enslaved population in Galveston, Texas and announced that a quarter million slaves in the former Confederacy’s westernmost state were now free.
Juneteenth became a state holiday in Pennsylvania in 2019 and a federal holiday in 2021.
“With the adoption of Juneteenth, we have a fuller, more accurate portrait of American history since 1865,” said Leslie Laing, founding member and co-chair of State College’s Juneteenth Commemoration Committee. “June 19, 1865 marks the liberation of Black people, where we are no longer property, where we are no longer traded as slaves. So I want all of you to rejoice in the celebration of our collective humanity.”
The local celebration kicked off on Friday night with the opening of an art exhibition at Woskob Family Gallery, 146 S. Allen St., featuring works by artists from Centre County and across the country, expressing visions of freedom, unity, peace and justice through a variety media. The exhibition will remain on display daily from 12:30 to 5 p.m. through July 14.
The local Juneteenth celebration was founded by the State College Chapter of the NAACP and is hosted with the State College Borough, the Center for Performing Arts at Penn State and the Happy Valley Adventure Bureau.
“As a municipality, we recognize the significant contributions of the Black community and hope to foster unity and understanding with our diverse populations,” said Chiluvya Zulu, State College Borough’s director of diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.
For 2024, the event had a theme of “Embracing Unity and Solidarity from Sundown to Sunrise: Juneteenth A New Horizon.” The theme “illuminates the historical perspectives about sundown towns that mandated us to be hidden, places that were labeled unsafe or hostile toward black people,” Laing said. “Sunrise speaks to a new day dawning, hope for a prosperous future that continues to emerge.”
Check out some of the scenes from Saturday’s celebration.
