The Black Scranton Project marked Juneteenth 2026 with a Friday afternoon open house at its Center for Arts & Culture on North Main Avenue.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the date on which Union troops entered Galveston, Texas and announced that all enslaved people were free.
President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declared all enslaved people in Confederate states were free on Jan. 1, 1863, as the Civil War was raging.
It took until Major General Gordon Granger's order over two years later for the proclamation to be enforced in Texas, nearly a month after the war had ended.
Many community groups and individual states have recognized the holiday in various ways, but Juneteenth did not become a federal holiday until 2021.
The Black Scranton Project hosted its first Juneteenth celebration in 2019.
This year's event offered visitors the chance to tour the nonprofit group's building, look at archival materials, and learn about its mission.
Learn more about Juneteenth
● How much do you know about Juneteenth? — Associated Press quiz
● National Juneteenth coverage — Associated Press
● How news of the Emancipation Proclamation spread through the South — NPR
● 'Grandmother of Juneteenth' celebrates freedom, 2.5 miles at a time — NPR
● What is Juneteenth? — Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture
