[Archived] Celebrate Juneteenth 2021

This Juneteenth, let the Alexandria Black History Museum and Historic Alexandria help you celebrate! Learn more about Juneteenth and how it has been celebrated in the City of Alexandria. Join one of our virtual programs detailed below. Get out into the City with the Alexandria African American Waterfront Trail as your guide. Make your own journey through the City’s many sites that bear witness to the journey to freedom.

The Alexandria Black History Museum has celebrated Juneteenth for almost 30 years. The early celebrations were small festivals with a mayoral reading of the Emancipation Proclamation followed by food, vendors, performances, and children’s games and crafts. Later events featured film screenings, children’s programming, an open house featuring doll houses of historic Alexandria, and lectures by notable speakers. For the second year the celebrations are virtual so we thought we would take a trip down memory lane at some of our past celebrations together…

• Juneteenth: Celebrating with the Alexandria Black History Museum
• Alexandria Celebrates Juneteenth: See the Illumination of City Hall and the fountain.

Start Your Journey at the Black History Museum

• Learn more about the Alexandria Black History Museum's collection. 
• Explore some of our collections online.
• Discover our new Black Lives Remembered Collection and our new Online Only exhibition, " Preserving Their Names."
• Be a part of the story with our collecting initiative.

Storytime with Young Historians

in Collaboration with the Alexandria Library
Saturday, June 12, 2021
10 – 10:30 a.m.
Free on Zoom
Register at alexlibraryva.org/event/5156289.

In conjunction with Alexandria Libraries, the Alexandria Black History Museum is excited to present a new Storytime! Join ABHM’s Lillian Patterson for stories with a Juneteenth theme where even our youngest audience can learn more about this important day. Storytime will feature All Different Now by Angela Johnson and Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper. This program is geared toward ages 3-5, but children of all ages are welcome to enjoy the fun!

Making Reconstruction Count:  The Era of Reconstruction

Friday, June 18, 2021
11 a.m. – 12:15 p.m. 
Free Webinar on Zoom
Register through Virginia Humanities

Virginia Africana, Virginia Humanities and the Alexandria Black History Museum present a webinar with Ed Ayers and Annie Evans. This is the third webinar in the Virginia Africana series called Amplifying the Silences in African History. The era of Reconstruction is hard to teach, in part because it’s complicated and in part because it is habitually portrayed as a failure. Seeing the decade from the perspective of the four million Americans who made themselves free, however, opens exciting new possibilities for teaching and engagement. An array of tools from New American History—Bunk, BackStory, Seizing Freedom, Learning Resources, and Southern Journey—can help do that.

Exploring the Alexandria African American Trail (AAAHT)

Saturday, June 19, 2021
11 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Free Webinar on Zoom
Watch the Video

The African American Waterfront Heritage Trail Committee is made up of volunteer community members and historians and is supported by staff from the Alexandria Black History Museum and Alexandria Archaeology. 

A Special Award will be given by the Alexandria Historical Society to the members of the African American Heritage Trail Committee on Saturday, June 19 as part of the City’s Juneteenth Celebrations for their work on the new African American Waterfront Heritage Trail.

Our People: A Juneteenth Story

Washington Revels Jubilee Voices

Saturday, June 19, 2021
2 – 3 p.m.
Free Concert on Zoom
Watch the Concert

The Washington Revels Jubilee Voices ensemble is committed to the preservation of African American history and traditions — presenting songs and stories of struggle and perseverance, trials, and triumphs, as expressed through a cappella music, drama, and dance. This concert will feature WRJV singing at sites important to Alexandria’s African American history, blending history with performance. Established in 2010, the group now performs regularly throughout the Washington D.C. area, singing, sharing, and learning the stories of the people in those communities. 

Culture Queen’s Juneteenth Jubilee

Saturday, June 19, 2021
From the Alexandria Library
2– 3 p.m.
Free on Zoom
Register at alexlibraryva.org/event/5118528.

Join Culture Queen for a Juneteenth Jubilee virtual emancipation celebration.

During the program, Culture Queen will use interactive music, movement, and storytelling to teach children and families about this historic Texas holiday where African Americans who were enslaved received news that they were finally free from enslavement.

More Alexandria Events

Find more Juneteenth celebrations at VisitAlexandriaVA.com.