Montgomery to mark Juneteenth with online celebration

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — COVID-19 has sparked many an event to change the way it's being held and celebrations of Juneteenth are not being spared.

Marking the end of slavery 155 years ago, under normal circumstances, Juneteenth would have included a street party this weekend in Montgomery with speakers, vendors and music outside the Rosa Parks Museum. Now, Juneteenth is going online Friday.

“Unfortunately, with the unknown of the COVID-19, we just had to cancel because of not knowing whether it would be good or bad to have people here,” Ray White, vice chancellor of Troy University’s Montgomery campus., told The Montgomery Advertiser.

Troy University operates The Rosa Parks Museum is accepting video submissions for possible use on its social media sites Friday. Music, dramatic readings, dance and other performance videos can be emailed to Madeline Burkhardt, the museum’s adult education coordinator, at mburkhardt@troy.edu. Submissions will be accepted through Thursday at 7 p.m.

The submissions will be used to supplement other Juneteenth posts from Troy University and the museum.

The celebration, however, is not all online. The museum will still be offering free tours on Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. To ensure social distancing, White said the tours will be limited to 8 people at a time.

Guests will be required to wear facemasks in the museum.

“The reality is that there’s bad stuff out there,” White said. “We try to do all the right safety things that the governor and the CDC has put out.”

Juneteenth recognizes June 19, 1865, when a group of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, finally learned that they were free from slavery. The date was almost 2 1/2 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.