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History Professor Alphine W. Jefferson |
Randolph-Macon College's third-annual Juneteenth celebration will be held on Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 4:00 p.m. in Blackwell Auditorium, the Center for the Performing Arts. The program, “Blacks and the Sesquicentennial: Celebration or Commemoration,” is presented by the R-MC
Black Studies program and The Hanover County Black Heritage Society, Inc.
This event is free and open to the public.
Juneteenth is held in honor of the day that the last enslaved North Americans were freed in the United States by the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth began in Galveston, Texas on June 19, 1865 when Blacks in Galveston learned that they were free by order of the Emancipation Proclamation, which had become effective January 1, 1863. On June 19, 1865, Major General Gordon Granger landed in Galveston, Texas with Union soldiers bringing news that the Civil War had ended. Beginning in Texas as a state holiday, Juneteenth is now recognized officially in more than 40 states.
The program will offer historical entertainment, information and inspiration for people of all ages and backgrounds. The audience will hear musical selections from the gospel-singing group True Anointing and see a performance by the Saint Luke Baptist Church’s Praise Dance Troupe.
There will also be presentations from speakers, including Roice Luke, who will discuss the 1895 Armory built for Richmond’s Black Militia. R-MC Professor Jack Trammell will read his poem “Wall Street," and his most recent book,
The Richmond Slave Trade: The Economic Backbone of the Old Dominion, will be available for purchase. Trammell will be available to sign copies of the book, which is also available in the
R-MC Bookstore. In addition, 2012 R-MC graduate Kenneth White will share his Schapiro Undergraduate Research Fellowship (
SURF) findings on slave cemeteries.
Alphine W. Jefferson, Professor of
History and Director of the Black Studies Program at
R-MC as well as president of the Hanover County Black Heritage Society, Inc., will serve as Master of Ceremonies.
For more information, contact Alphine Jefferson at (804)752-3218 or
awjefferson@rmc.edu.