DAYTON — Juneteenth celebrations are already taking place in several Miami Valley communities.
Today, a Juneteenth concert took place at Levitt Pavilion in Downtown Dayton featuring music and poetry, as well as educational programs.
>> 2024 Juneteenth celebrations around the Miami Valley
The event’s organizer said this event was not only meant to celebrate the end of slavery but the progress that has been made since then.
“For us, it’s meant to have an opportunity to share space in community with community, for and by community, and that for us has been priceless,” Sierra Leone, Executive Director of Home of Urban Creative Arts, said.
Juneteenth has only been a federal holiday since 2021. It marks the day the last slaves learned of their freedom three years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
“And this is now new, just so you know,” Leone said. “Dayton has been celebrating a version of Juneteenth Emancipation Day since the late 1800s.”
As reported on News Center 7 at 11:00, while the federal government has only recently recognized the significance of Juneteenth, this celebration continues the Dayton community’s long-standing tradition of marking the historic day.
>> PHOTOS: Juneteenth concert at Levitt Pavilion
“There’s people who’ve been celebrating across the Miami Valley for a very long time,” Leone said.
News Center 7 spoke to Retha Hardwick, who said she was honored to have three generations of her family at the concert to take it all in together.
“Still struggles out here, but once you have nice events to come to, struggles [are] not so hard. Let go,” she said. “Every once in a while, don’t think about the bad thing.”
Hardwick also said the celebration is important and so is preserving and teaching history.
“More history of the Black struggle. More history of us. More history of Dayton, how we’ve progressed, and how things are coming along, you know?” she said.
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