Honoring Juneteenth: Palm Coast residents celebrate day of freedom

Palm Coast residents celebrated at Juneteenth Freedom Day at the African American Cultural Society.

  • By Abe Mills
  • | 5:00 p.m. June 17, 2026
  • Palm Coast Observer
  • Neighbors
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Palm Coast residents celebrated Juneteenth at the African American Cultural Society on Saturday, June 13.

The AACS building was packed with members of the community and featured a Freedom Day program that included skits, musical performances, sing-a-longs, interactive dancing, a fashion show, prize drawings and a scholarship presentation inside. Outside there was a bounce house, food trucks, drink, clothing, and food vendors and a Mayo clinic bus. 

“Each year it gets bigger and bigger,” AACS Membership Committee Chair Mamie Godfrey said. 

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. 

As part of the program, volunteers reenacted the moment that slaves were read the announcement. The audience and the actors cheered when the announcement was made. 

“[Juneteenth] is a celebration of all of our culture and our freedom; and it’s just amazing to see everybody come together and act as a family together,”  attendee Karlie Williams said.

 

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