September 20, 2024
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Juneteenth celebration, block party planned in Annie Glidden North neighborhood

“While this significant milestone is typically noted by Black/African Americans, this gathering will be welcoming and inviting to everyone,” event organizers said.

By Daily Chronicle staff report

Pastor Joe Mitchell of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church in DeKalb speaks at the Hopkins Park bandshell Friday during the Juneteenth Freedom March. The event, organized by local Black Lives Matter leaders, stepped off at Clinton Rosette Middle School and concluded at Hopkins Park in DeKalb. Juneteenth is celebration commemorating the liberation of slaves in the United States. (Mark Busch)

DeKALB – Local community groups announced they will host a block party in DeKalb for Juneteenth, a holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States of America.

New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, the NIU Center for Black Studies and B.L.L.A.C.K. Inc. NFP are hosting a community Juneteenth celebration and block party to commemorate the historic date. The event is scheduled from noon to 5 p.m. June 19 at the corner of Hillcrest and Blackhawk, where the old Campus Cinema once stood, in the Annie Glidden North neighborhood.

The event will include music, food, a mobile COVID-19 vaccination clinic, voter registration and social services information, along with other activities.

“While this significant milestone is typically noted by Black/African Americans, this gathering will be welcoming and inviting to everyone,” the event page read.

Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. On June 19, 1865, two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was created, Union soldiers came to Galveston, Texas to bring the news that the Civil War had ended and slaves were now free.

For more information, to register as a vendor for the event or to give monetary donations for the event, visit newhopeofdekalb.org/juneteenth.

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