Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility
Fresno Juneteenth Rally Is Tonight at Cultural Arts District Park
GV-Wire-1
By gvwire
Published 5 years ago on
June 19, 2020

Share

Juneteenth has added meaning this year amid Black Lives Matter protests following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police.

Despite restrictions on social gatherings because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Juneteenth will be celebrated starting at 6 p.m. Friday at the Cultural Arts Park in downtown Fresno.

Organizers say that event-goers must wear facemasks and follow social distancing guidelines.

This year’s theme is United We Stand Divided We Fall, and the event is billed as a peace rally.

“The time is now for us to bridge the gap between communities and other cultures. All Lives Matter, but right now the Lives of Black people are hurting,” said event host Adrian Vibe Harris of Fresno in a Facebook post. “Our purpose is to: ORGANIZE! ORGANIZE! – people/allies/organization that will be committed to helping empower the Black Community.”

image of a poster advertising the Juneteenth celebration Friday, June 19, 2020, in Fresno, California
Facebook/Adrian Vibe Harris

The Beginnings

The celebration started with the freed slaves of Galveston, Texas. Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed the slaves in the South in 1863, it could not be enforced in many places until after the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Laura Smalley, who was freed from a plantation near Bellville, Texas, remembered in a 1941 interview that her former master had gone to fight in the Civil War and came home without telling his slaves what had happened.

“Old master didn’t tell, you know, they was free,” Smalley said. “I think now they say they worked them, six months after that. Six months. And turn them loose on the 19th of June. That’s why, you know, we celebrate that day.”

It was June 19, 1865, when Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his Union troops arrived at Galveston with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

Granger read from General Order No. 3, which said: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor.”

The next year, the now-freed slaves started celebrating Juneteenth in Galveston, and the celebration has continued around the nation and the world since.

What Does Juneteenth Mean?

The term Juneteenth is a blend of the words June and nineteenth. The holiday has also been called Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day.

“It’s really more huge parties and huge parades and big concerts, but always bringing in freedom. It’s all about freedom.” — Para LaNell Agboga of the George Washington Carver Museum

Black Texans took the holiday with them as they moved around the country and overseas, Evans said, and what started as a local celebration went international.

Forty-five states and the District of Columbia recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or day of recognition, like Flag Day. Countries like South Korea, Ghana, Israel, Taiwan, France, and the U.S. territory of Guam have held or now hold Juneteenth celebrations.

Juneteenth Will Become a Holiday in the Former Home of the Confederacy

On Tuesday, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced that he’s making Juneteenth an official holiday in a state that was once home to the capital of the Confederacy.

“It’s time we elevate this,” Northam said of the June 19 commemoration. “Not just a celebration by and for some Virginians but one acknowledged and celebrated by all of us.”

Northam was joined at a news conference by musician Pharrell Williams, who is from Virginia. Williams said Juneteenth deserves the same level of recognition and celebration as Independence Day.

“Here’s our day, and if you love us, it’ll be your day too,” Williams said.

In addition, Nike, the NFL, Target, and other businesses will give their employees a day off for Juneteenth for the first time this year

Remembering the Past

Juneteenth celebrations used to revolve around the church with speeches and picnics, said Para LaNell Agboga, museum site coordinator at the George Washington Carver Museum, Cultural and Genealogy Center in Austin, Texas, which has one of the only permanent Juneteenth museum exhibits in the country.

It changed around the 1960s with the civil rights movement, she said.

“It became a little more secular and stretched over more than one day,” Agboga said. “It became kind of a time of community gathering … It’s really more huge parties and huge parades and big concerts, but always bringing in freedom. It’s all about freedom.”

(The Associated Press contributed to this article.)

DON'T MISS

What Are Fresno Real Estate Experts Predicting for 2025 and Beyond?

DON'T MISS

First California EV Mandates Hit Automakers This Year. Most Are Not Even Close

DON'T MISS

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

DON'T MISS

Israeli Military Kills 41 People in Gaza, Medics Say

DON'T MISS

Manhunt for Gunman Who Shot Two Minnesota Lawmakers Enters Second Day

DON'T MISS

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

DON'T MISS

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

DON'T MISS

Newsom Wanted To Fast-Track the Delta Tunnel Project. The Legislature Slowed the Flow

DON'T MISS

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

DON'T MISS

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

DON'T MISS

Israel Says Attacks on Iran Are Nothing Compared With What Is Coming

DON'T MISS

Military Parade Barrels Through Nation’s Capital With Tanks, Troops and 21-Gun Salute

UP NEXT

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

UP NEXT

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

UP NEXT

‘We Will Kill You Dead’: Florida Sheriff’s Stark Warning to Demonstrators

UP NEXT

A Starter Pack for Aspiring Wine Lovers

UP NEXT

Does Merced County Need an Independent Commission to Draw Board of Supervisors Districts?

UP NEXT

Fresno Arts Council Debuts Gallery on Fulton for July ArtHop

UP NEXT

Vacant Fresno Restaurant Heavily Damaged in Early Morning Fire

UP NEXT

Fresno Shooting Leaves Man Dead Near Griffith and Hughes

UP NEXT

Man Found Dead in Bass Lake, Cause Under Investigation

UP NEXT

Tensions Boil Between Arias and Dem Congressmembers

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

21 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

21 hours ago

Newsom Wanted To Fast-Track the Delta Tunnel Project. The Legislature Slowed the Flow

22 hours ago

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

1 day ago

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

1 day ago

Israel Says Attacks on Iran Are Nothing Compared With What Is Coming

2 days ago

Military Parade Barrels Through Nation’s Capital With Tanks, Troops and 21-Gun Salute

2 days ago

Authorities Still Searching for Suspect in Shooting of 2 Minnesota State Lawmakers

2 days ago

Caitlin Clark Returns and Leads Fever to Upset Win Over Unbeaten Liberty

2 days ago

Iran Fires Another Round of Missiles at Israel, and Explosions Are Heard in Tehran

2 days ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

A man is dead and three others are injured following a rollover crash Saturday evening on Trimmer Springs Road that investigators say was ca...

19 hours ago

19 hours ago

Fresno Man Arrested in Fatal DUI Crash on Trimmer Springs Road

Mourners pray during the funeral of a Palestinian killed in what the Gaza health ministry says was Israeli fire near a distribution center in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled
19 hours ago

Israeli Military Kills 41 People in Gaza, Medics Say

Bullet holes mark the front door of Minnesota state Senator John Hoffman, who was shot alongside his wife, Yvette, in what is believed to be an attack by 57-year-old suspect Vance Luther Boelter, who is also the lead suspect in the shooting deaths of senior Democratic state assemblywoman Melissa Hortman and her husband, Marc, in Champlin, Minnesota, U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Tim Evans
21 hours ago

Manhunt for Gunman Who Shot Two Minnesota Lawmakers Enters Second Day

Israelis take shelter at the side of a highway as siren sounds following missile attack from Iran on Israel, in central Israel June 15, 2025. REUTERS/Oren Ben Hakoon
21 hours ago

Israel and Iran Bombard Each Other, Trump Says He Can ‘Easily’ End Conflict

President Donald Trump speaks as he attends a military parade to commemorate the U.S. Army's 250th Birthday, on the day of his 79th birthday, in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo
21 hours ago

Trump Vetoed an Israeli Plan to Kill Iran’s Supreme Leader, US Officials Say

22 hours ago

Newsom Wanted To Fast-Track the Delta Tunnel Project. The Legislature Slowed the Flow

1 day ago

Five Weeknight Dishes: Seven Ingredients or Fewer, Because Summer

1 day ago

Big Fresno Fair Unveils Second Wave of 2025 Concert Acts

Help continue the work that gets you the news that matters most.

Search

Send this to a friend