Swampscott Juneteenth Celebration Set For Town Hall Lawn

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — Swampscott will celebrate Juneteenth with a program of music and speakers at the Town Hall Lawn on Thursday.

The program will also include face painting, food, treats, a flag-raising ceremony, and more.

The town of Swampscott will present the ceremony starting at 3 p.m. and running until 5 p.m.

All students are invited to attend will parent supervision for elementary school students.

The national holiday commemorates the day in 1865, more than two years after President Abraham 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.

Town offices in Swampscott 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.)