Gonzales Juneteenth celebration set for June 14

The annual Gonzales Juneteenth celebration will take place this Saturday, June 14, from 4 p.m. to midnight at the Edwards CommUNITY Center, Kleine and Fly Streets, Gonzales.

There will be Gospel Music Fest, speakers, games, watermelon eating contest, tug of war, sack race, water balloon toss and egg relay, as well as vendors for food and fun.

The lighted slingshot motorcycle parade will take place at 8 p.m. DJ “Lady T” will be spinning discs from 7 p.m. to midnight.

Juneteenth celebrates the end of slavery in Texas; on June 19, 1865, Union Army General Gordon Granger and 2,000 federal arrived in Galveston, Texas to inform the enslaved black and African Americans of the region that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed them.

The proclamation as read states:

“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 freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.”

Granger and his troops rode on horseback through the island announcing the news in several historic and visitable locations from Ashton Villa, Reedy AME Chapel and the Osterman Building in Galveston.

For more history of Juneteeth, please go to https://www.galvestonhistory.org/news/juneteenth-and-general-order-no-3.