DETROIT (NEWSnet/AP) — Americans throughout the U.S. observed Juneteenth throughout the weekend and Monday, marking the holiday with cookouts, parades and other gatherings to commemorate the end of slavery after the Civil War.

Although many have used the long holiday weekend as a reason for a party or extra time away from work, others urged quiet reflection on America's often violent and oppressive treatment of its Black citizens.

Monday’s federal holiday commemorated the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued during the bloody Civil War.

On Juneteenth weekend, a Roman Catholic church in Detroit devoted its service to urging parishioners to take a deeper look at the lessons from the holiday.

“In order to have justice we must work for peace. And in order to have peace we must work for justice,” John Thorne, executive director of the Detroit Catholic Pastoral Alliance, said to the congregation at Gesu Catholic Church in Detroit.

Standing before paintings of a Black Jesus and Mary, Thorne said Juneteenth is a day of celebration, but it also “has to be much more.”

It was important to speak about Juneteenth during Sunday Mass, the Rev. Lorn Snow told a reporter as the service was ending.

“The struggle’s still not over with. There’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.

Other events to mark the holiday included a CNN special on which Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to appear, along with with musical guests including Miguel and Charlie Wilson.

Although end-of-slavery celebrations are new in many parts of the country, in Memphis, where the slave trade once thrived, the Juneteenth holiday has been observed since long before it became a designated federal holiday in 2021. The Tennessee Legislature passed a bill earlier this year making it a state holiday, as well.

Events there include a multi-day festival including food, music, arts and crafts, and cultural exhibitions in a tree-lined park in the city's medical district. The Memphis park once held an equestrian statue and the grave of slave trader and Confederate general Nathan Bedford Forrest. The statue and the body were moved in recent years.

Memphis is home to the National Civil Rights Museum located at the site of the old Lorraine Motel, the former Black-owned hotel where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed in 1968. The museum offered free admission Monday to mark the holiday. At the museum, visitors can hear recorded speeches from civil rights leaders including King, Fannie Lou Hamer, Medgar Evers and others.

Ryan Jones, the museum’s associate curator, said Juneteenth should be celebrated in the U.S. with the same emphasis that July 4 receives as Independence Day.

“It is the independence of a people that were forced to endure oppression and discrimination based on the color of their skin,” Jones said.

The Juneteenth holiday, Jones said, should also be viewed as more than a day when people attend parties and cookouts. It is a time to reflect on the past, he said.

“It acknowledges the sacrifices of those early civil rights veterans between World War I and World War II, and of course in the modern society, the protests, the demonstrations, the non-violence, the marches,” Jones said.

In New York, a hybrid event in Central Park on Monday celebrated the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, with an emphasis on the local Black’s community’s impact on the genre. The event capped a weekend of festivities that involved collaborators working together to spread awareness of the holiday, according to Athenia Rodney,

 

founder of the nonprofit group Juneteenth NYC.

After three days of marches, barbecues and cultural showcases, Rodney said she planned to spend Monday at home, reflecting on the historical roots of the holiday and how much has changed.

“Juneteenth isn’t just about a party or a festival, it’s about how we bring the community together under the umbrella of unity,” Rodney said.

Copyright 2023 NEWSnet and sThe Associated Press. All rights reserved.