Plans are underway for Austin’s Juneteenth festival.
A planning meeting will be held tonight at 6 at Sankofa Cultural Arts & Business Center, 5820 W. Chicago Ave.
The theme for this year’s multi-day event is “Embracing the Past, Present and Future.”
Festival Founder Rickie Brown, who’s chairman of the West Side Historical Society, restarted the event in June 2011; and it was held in 2012 and last year as well.
Juneteenth commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in Texas on June 19, 1865. That announcement marked the first time the Union’s presence was strong enough throughout the Southern states to enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.
For more information, call Brown at (312) 718-9296.