Eastern Michigan University To Host Juneteenth Events

(CBS DETROIT) -- In honor of Juneteenth, Eastern Michigan University professors will be hosting a commemorative lecture on Sunday.

In 1865, federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, to ensure all slaves were free, years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth became a federal holiday on June 17, 2021.

To celebrate, part-time lecturers Micala Evans and Imelda Hunt with the EMU's Department of Africology and African American Studies curated a Juneteenth Awareness Tour. The department will host community events from 7-8 p.m. on June 9 at the Plymouth District Library, on June 15 at the Way Public Library in Perrysburg, Ohio.

In addition, a virtual commemorative lecture from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m. on Sunday, June 19.

The lecture will feature special guest Mark Fancher, staff attorney for ACLU's Racial Justice Project.

"We want everyone to understand that this holiday is because freedom did not come to all enslaved persons at the same time nor with the stroke of President Lincoln's pen," Hunt said in a press release.

Evans and Hunt will present "Curators of our Art: A Juneteenth Celebration."

Click here for more information to attend the virtual lecture via Zoom.

"Freedom had to be taught, and people had to understand then, just as we do now, what freedom means," said Dr. Evans, who also founded Idlewild Juneteenth Festival in Idlewild, Michigan.

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