![]() ![]() The grand finale will be on Monday, June 19, when Colonial Williamsburg offers free admission and the Village Initiative in Education Equity sponsors a Juneteenth Celebration Honoring the Ancestors from 1-7 p.m. Williamsburg Live will sponsor Keb’ Mo’, a five-time Grammy winning artist and 2021 recipient of the Americana Music Association’s Lifetime Achievement in Performance Award. Sunrise Service sponsored by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation at the Compton Oak, a landmark tree representing life, endurance, shelter and joy. It is only fitting that America’s Historic Triangle region - Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown - where Virginia slavery was codified, would join communities nationwide in the celebration. In the midst of these struggles, the celebration of Juneteenth arrives as a much-needed diversion and powerful reminder to keep hope alive. Last week, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of African Americans who challenged Alabama’s congressional redistricting designed to diminish equal power over the ballot box. Moreover, more than 50 years after the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law, African Americans are still protesting attacks on voting rights. The recent surge in gun violence - resulting in more than 270 mass shootings and more than 350 deaths in the first six months of 2023 - has pitted calls for stricter gun control laws with Second Amendment rights to bear arms. Wade, the landmark decision that ruled against state laws that banned a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. American women are grappling to regain freedom to exercise control over our own bodies after the U.S. Ironically, in 2023, millions of Americans believe that their freedoms are still under attack. Once celebrated primarily by African Americans to mark June 19, 1865, when 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, to enforce compliance with President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation to end slavery, Juneteenth now symbolizes both freedom from oppressive laws and America’s responsibility to live up to its pledge of liberty and justice for all. “Great nations don’t ignore their most painful moments,” President Joe Biden said when he signed the Juneteenth National Independence Act, making June 19th the federal Juneteenth holiday. ![]()
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