Holiday celebrations planned throughout the state this weekend
By Josiah Cork, WV News
CLARKSBURG, W.Va. — This weekend, people across America will be celebrating Juneteenth National Independence Day, also known as Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, Freedom Day and Black Independence Day.
Juneteenth commemorates the day in 1865 when slavery ended in the US.
“It’s the oldest African-American holiday in the United States, and it marks the day that the remaining roughly 166,000 slaves were finally freed,” said Jill Upson, executive director of the Herbert Henderson Office of Minority Affairs.
Estimates vary for the number of slaves freed in Texas on Juneteenth up to about 250,000.
Although the Emancipation Proclamation was announced on January 1, 1863, Juneteenth was the day that word of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the last remaining slaves in Galveston, Texas…
