Steadfast Celebrations:
This file appears in: Juneteenth
Reflecting on the long tradition of Juneteenth celebrations in Mexia, Linda Jann Lewis remembers returning every year to Booker T. Washington Park for festivities with her family. The park, originally called Emancipation Park, was established by freed Black people previously enslaved by Logan Stroud, whose family had built their wealth off enslaved labor.
This file appears in: Juneteenth
Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, heard the news of their freedom. More than two years earlier, President Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation to establish the freedom of enslaved people in Confederate States…