Civil rights names sometimes attended

Civil rights icons Ralph Abernathy and Hosea Williams are just two of the many historic speakers who have participated in the celebration since its inception, says Lankston Johnson, who led the effort for eight years from the late 2000s into the mid-2010s. Floats, marching bands, vendors and more dot the parade route extending from the predominantly black downtown area, where the parade historically started, to Lincoln Park, another predominantly black area.

At 67,McGill can’t recall missing one Emancipation Celebration. Neither can 38-yearold Markeevius Smith, who attended Morris Brown College and Georgia State University. At 41 years of age, Johnson only recalls missing one, when he was a college student. It’s a tradition they pass down to their children just as their parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and beyond passed it down.

Today, Thomaston is extremely rare.

“Nationally, Juneteenth celebrations have replaced Emancipation Day celebrations as popular events,” notes Venet. “The Atlanta History Center holds annual celebrations over two days that include storytelling, crafts and costumed interpreters acting as Civil War soldiers in the U.S. Colored Troops.”

Some historians credit the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign for giving Juneteenth a boost through its Solidarity Day event held that June 19, which attracted over 50,000 people in Washington, D.C. Both Abernathy and Coretta Scott King spoke that day.

“Juneteenth has really had a revival of sorts really since the 1980s to ’90s,” observes Cook-Bell. That revival, she says, can be attributed to “the momentum of the post-civil rights period when African Americans were claiming the gains they had made since the civil rights movement, politically, economically and even socially.”

“Texas became the first state to recognize Juneteenth as an official state holiday in 1980, and other states followed suit in terms of recognizing it either as a state holiday or as a special ceremonial holiday . ... Today 47 out of 50 states recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or either as a ceremonial holiday.”

And Georgia is one of them. According to JuneteenthAtl.com, website for Atlanta’s own Juneteenth celebration, “In 2011, Georgia became the thirty-seventh state to recognize Juneteenth at its state capitol with the passage of S.R. 164.” State Sen Lester Jackson from Savannah, along with Atlanta-area state Sens. Donzella James and Valencia Seay, co-sponsored the legislation.

The following year, Bob Johnson, who came to Atlanta in 1988, created Juneteenth Atlanta, which today, he boasts, is “one of the largest Juneteenth events in the country.”

“Last year, we actually held the event at the Home Depot Backyard at Mercedes-Benz Stadium,” he explains. “We also did a 3-mile black history parade as part of our events that span over three days instead of one.”