The Human Relations Commission of the Borough of Highland Parkinvites residents and visitors to A flag raising in honorof the Federal Holiday of Juneteenth

Monday June 20th, at 10:00 am

At the flagpole in the parking lot

by the Highland Park Community Center

220 South 6th Ave.

Speakers include:

* Reverend Alicia Grey. M. Div.

Pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church, Highland Park

* Monique Coleman, PhD. candidate,

Member, Highland Park Board of Education

* Gayle Brill Mittler

Mayor of Highland Park

* Austin Morreale

Acting Chair, Human Relations Commission.

Light refreshments will be served.

What is Juneteenth?

Juneteenth is a federal holiday celebrated on June 19 to commemorate the date in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they were free under the terms of the Emancipation Proclamation, issued two years earlier on January 1, 1863.

Because the Proclamation was issued in the midst of the Civil War, enforcement in Texas -- the most remote state in the Confederacy -- was slow. Despite the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee on April 19, 1865, the Confederate Army in Texas did not surrender until two months later on June 2.

On the morning of June 19, 1865, Union General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston and took command of newly landed federal troops. The troops marched through the city reading General Order Number Three transmitting news of the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Confederate states. Slavery remained legal in states that had remained in the Union until December 6, 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution abolished all chattel slavery in the country.

June 19th was declared a federal holiday last year when President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law.