Salem Juneteenth Celebration Comes To Riley Plaza

SALEM, MA — Salem will celebrate Juneteenth with a program of music and speakers at Riley Plaza on June 19.

The program will include the raising of the Juneteenth flag, a performance of the Black national anthem by Eva Davenport, and a speaker lineup that includes Nicole McClain, Michelle LaPoetica and more.

The city and North Shore Juneteenth Association Inc. will present the event starting at 10 a.m.

The national holiday commemorates the day in 1865, more than two years after President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, when word finally reached the last enslaved people in Texas that the Civil War had ended, and they were free.

Also known as Emancipation Day, Freedom Day and Jubilee Day, Juneteenth is the oldest-known celebration of the end of slavery in the United States. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation making it a federal holiday, the first since the addition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 1983.

Related: What Is Juneteenth? Celebrating The End Of Slavery

Because Juneteenth is an official U.S. holiday, banks, federal offices and post offices in Massachusetts will be closed Monday.

City offices in Salem will be closed as well.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)