Shirley King, Yadira Salters, and Annette Reid celebrate Juneteenth at the Daytona Beach Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
The Atlantic Cheer team perfoms at the Daytona Beach Juneteenth Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
Noah Bowdry of Daytona Beach smiles while taking a pony ride at the Juneteenth Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
Atlantic High School Drill Team poses for a photo at the Juneteenth Celbration in Daytona Beach. Photo by Rachel Mills
Xavier Curry and Daveon Hall of Mainland High School. Photo by Rachel Mills
The Atlantic HIgh School Cheer Team performs at the Juneteenth Festival in Daytona Beach. Photo by Rachel Mills
Campbell Middle School Band marches at the Daytona Beach Juneteenth Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
Campbell Middle School Band marches at the Juneteenth Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
Toni Wiley (Cake Lady of Ocala) displays her dining options at the Juneteenth Festival. Photo by Rachel Mills
Erica Munnerlyn, Selena Harris, and Lateia Harris pose in their booth featuring eclectic art pieces. Photo by Rachel Mills
Curator Angela Jennings stands with some of the displays that are part of The Sancofa Traveling Museum at the Daytona Beach Juneteenth Celebration. Photo by Rachel Mills
Keisha Long sits with her granddaughter, Treasure. Photo by Rachel Mills
The Daytona Beach Juneteenth Festival brought together vendors, performers and festival goers from around the local community and beyond for a day of celebration on Saturday, June 13 at Cypress Park.
Juneteenth is a federal holiday to commemorate the day that slavery ended in the United States. On June 19, 1865, U.S. troops marched into Galveston, Texas, to enforce President Abraham Lincoln’s executive order known as the Emancipation Proclamation. General Gordon Granger declared that the remaining 250,000 slaves in Texas were officially free. Prior to then, those slaves spent two years without knowing that they had already been declared free.
Daytona Beach Festival Committee Chairperson Linda McGee wants to make sure that we always remember the history and the people who are a part of it.
“America is Juneteenth," said McGee. She described it as a holiday where, “people who didn't have freedom can still be remembered and loved and honored.”
The Sankofa African-American Museum on Wheels was included in the festival. The museum recognized African American trailblazers, inventors, and leaders . It also included art and artifacts from the time of slavery through the civil rights movement.
“Sankofa means to use the wisdom from the past to build the future,” curator Angela Jennings said. “[The Museum] has been in existence for about 35 years and travels the United States telling the history and culture of the African American diaspora.”
The museum has been to almost every state in the United States.
The Juneteenth celebration also featured a petting zoo, pony rides, mini-train rides, performances from the Campbell Middle School Band and Atlantic High School Cheer Team and others. There were also food, art, clothing and jewelry vendors from all over Florida.
