YPSILANTI, Mich. – In celebration of Juneteenth, Eastern Michigan University professors will be hosting several events.
The event, which commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States, became a federal holiday in 2021.
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Lecturers in EMU’s Department of Africology and African American Studies have organized and curated a Juneteenth Awareness Tour that will take place in three communities.
Part-time lecturers Micala Evans and Imelda Hunt of EMU’s Department of Africology and African American Studies (AAAS) have curated a Juneteenth Awareness Tour in three communities, with a presentation to engage community members in the newly recognized federal holiday.
“We want everyone to understand that this holiday is because freedom did not come to all enslaved persons at the same time nor with the stroke of President Lincoln’s pen,” co-organizer Imelda Hunt said in a release.
Hunt and Micala Evans will present Curators of our Art: A Juneteenth Celebration at the following events this month:
- June 9 - Plymouth District Library from 7-8 p.m.
- June 15 - Way Public Library in Perrysburg, Ohio.
- June 19 - virtual lecture by EMU’s Department of AAAS with special guest speaker Mark Fancher from 6:30-7:45 p.m. Here’s the Zoom link for the lecture.
“Freedom had to be taught, and people had to understand then, just as we do now, what freedom means,” Evans, who also founded Idlewild Juneteenth Festival in Idlewild, Michigan, said in a release.
For more information about EMU, visit www.emich.edu.