Juneteenth
Friday, June 19 2020 at 11:00 AM CDT to
Friday, June 19 2020 at 12:00 PM CDT
Online
Online Location Instructions
Description
Event Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/95638735483
*The event will also be live streamed on the UTSA Student Union YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjn3xuhCmm8TP3WMtlV6BqA
All UTSA students, faculty and staff are invited to attend the annual Juneteenth Celebration on Friday, June 19th at 11am.
Hosted by the Student Union, in collaboration with African American Studies and the Multicultural Student Center for Equity and Justice, Juneteenth is an annual event which commemorates the day the Emancipation Proclamation was finally enacted in Texas.
The event will include a special message on Juneteenth, made by UTSA students and staff.
There will also be a live poetry reading by Christopher Michael Brown, a Texas Poet Laureate nominee and a National Poetry Slam Finalist with over 20 years of poetry performance.
Following the short program, there will be a panel discussion featuring special guests:
- Honorable Judge Stephanie Boyd, Bexar County 187th Criminal District Court
- Dr. Charles Gentry, UTSA Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
- Mr. Byron Miller, San Antonio Juneteenth Commissioner
- Ms. Priscilla Okolie, UTSA Black Student Union (BSU) President
The entire UTSA community is invited to help us celebrate this historical event by acknowledging the freedoms we often take for granted and standing with the Black community as we continue to fight for liberation from racial injustice.
What is Juneteenth?
Juneteenth is often cited as African-American Independence Day. Even through the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, an estimated 250,000 persons were still enslaved in Texas for 2 ½ additional years until Major General Granger landed in Galveston, TX on June 19th, 1865 with news that the war had ended and the enslaved were now free.
Event Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/95638735483