Attend the 4th annual MSU Juneteenth Commemorative Celebration on Friday, June 14, 2024, from 5 to 8:30 p.m. at the Breslin Center.
This year's theme is Acknowledging the Journey: Freedom, Resilience, Empowerment and Liberation. The commemoration features the multi-faceted musician and MSU alum Rodney Page as the emcee and more.
Students, staff, faculty, alums and local community members are encouraged to save the date for the celebration. There are activities for all ages. This event will not be livestreamed.
On June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation orders were given to free the over 250,000 African American slaves in Texas who had not yet been informed of the decree. Juneteenth, short for June nineteenth, is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the United States.
A century and a half later, Juneteenth is not taught in schools or widely known. MSU recognizes the importance of celebrating the full history of the U.S. so that everyone receives the recognition they deserve as builders of a great nation.
Juneteenth - On June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and a couple of months after the end of the Civil War, newly posted Major General Gordon Granger issued orders to free the over 250,000 African American slaves in Galveston, Texas, who had not yet been informed of the new law. Juneteenth is considered the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of the enslavement of African Americans and Black people in the United States.
Although, Juneteenth has been celebrated since the late 1800s, it was not federally recognized as a national holiday until June 17, 2021, when President Joe Biden signed a bill officially designating June 19 as a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in America.
Afrofuturism - The cultural aesthetic, philosophy and movement that explores the intersection of the African/Black diaspora with the alternative visions and imaginations of Black liberation.
African/Black diaspora - The descendants and global community of Black West and Central Africans who were enslaved and shipped to the Americas via the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Black National Anthem - 'Lift Every Voice and Sing' (poetry and lyrics) by James Weldon Johnson
Black Wall Street - Also known as the Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where in the early 20th century African Americans created a self-sufficient prosperous business district that was destroyed in 1921 due to racial violence.
Green Book -The Green Book was a travel guidebook specifically designed for African American travelers during the era of racial segregation in the United States. View the MSU Green Book.
Harlem Renaissance - The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual and cultural revival of African American music, dance, art, fashion, literature, theater, politics and scholarship centered in Harlem, Manhattan, New York City, spanning the 1920s and 1930s.
Idlewild - Idlewild, or the "Black Eden of Michigan," was one of the few resorts in the country where African Americans could safely vacation from 1912 through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Freedom - the power or right to act, speak or think as one wants without restraint.
Liberation - securing equitable, social, economic and judicial rights.