Doylestown to mark Juneteenth Sunday on Mercer Museum grounds

The U.S. has been slow to recognize Juneteenth, the day the country’s last enslaved people learned they were free. It wasn’t until 2021 that it was declared a national holiday here.

But, for generations of Black Americans, June 19 has long been a celebratory day, marked with parades, music and picnics.

In Doylestown Borough, the second annual Juneteenth at the Mercer Museum will run from 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. on June 18. The event will include speakers, live performances, food trucks, tents filled with the work of area artisans and craftspeople, family-friendly activities and free admission to the Mercer. All Juneteenth events are free and open to the public.

Learning about Juneteenth is somewhat new for many Americans, who may have been aware the Emancipation Proclamation was issued Jan. 1, 1863, but unaware that it took until June 19, 1865, after the end of the Civil War, for Black people in parts of Texas to learn they’d been freed.

Historians attribute the two-and-a-half year delay to the reluctance of some in the South to accept the end of slavery and inform their Black enslaved laborers they were free.

The celebrations began in Galveston, TX. News that the war had ended and they were free finally reached the town when Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger and his troops arrived in the Gulf Coast city on June 19, 1865, more than two months after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in Virginia.

Doreen Stratton, a Doylestown resident who works with the Bucks County Underground Railroad and blogs about issues of interest to Black Americans and others, said Juneteenth is an important day.

“In the past ten years I’ve read so much about the struggles of my people. Our freedom is here but remains absent alongside equality. Bringing awareness about June 19, I hope it’ll open a window of awareness to those who take their freedom for granted,” said Stratton.

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