Celebrating Juneteenth

We encourage you to take part in celebrating Juneteenth and to learn more about Juneteenth and its impact.

Presidential Initiative Statement on Juneteenth

Juneteenth has grown in scope and breadth over the years and is now celebrated widely across the country, including on our campus and more broadly in the town of Oberlin. These celebrations exemplify a commitment to celebrate, in moments of pure joy, Black people’s right to live as free human beings. Despite the ongoing challenges of a nation still wrestling with a recognition of this right, Juneteenth allows African Americans to reflect on the resilience of their ancestors, even as they take up the charge, as Americans, to maintain a sustained conviction to equity and social justice.

Meredith M. Gadsby
Special Assistant to the President on Racial Equity and Diversity
Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Comparative American Studies
Cochair of Presidential Initiative on Racial Equity and Diversity

Bill Quillen
Dean of the Conservatory
Cochair of Presidential Initiative on Racial Equity and Diversity

Juneteenth Events

Juneteenth Oberlin 2024: Marching to Freedom through Changing of the Guards

9 a.m.-6 p.m. saturday, June 15; corner of south main and edison street; free

Join the Oberlin community in its annual celebration of Juneteenth. The day begins with reflections and music starting at 9 a.m., including a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Donnay Edmund ’16. Noon marks the start of a parade that begins at Spring Street Park. Activities—including horseback rides led by the Freedom Riders and music by Daniel Spearman ’16 and Friends and a DJ—continue until 6 p.m. Additional info is available on the Juneteenth Oberlin website.

Beginning at 6:30 p.m., the festivities will move to Westwood Cemetery for a Maafa ceremony—honoring all those who have been enslaved—and a potter’s field service. The city’s only cemetery, Westwood opened on Morgan Street in 1864, and it is a final resting place of a number of Black and white soldiers who died in the Civil War, as well as former slaves who came to Oberlin via the Underground Railroad.

On June 8, 2004, Oberlin City Council passed a resolution establishing Juneteenth as an officially recognized day of commemoration and celebration for the city of Oberlin. Juneteenth Oberlin was incorporated that same year to facilitate the community recognition, celebration, promotion, and understanding of Oberlin’s officially declared and established Juneteenth holiday.

“Racism, as an institution, is interwoven into the fabric of American culture.”

Associate Professor Meredith Gadsby in “Here’s Why Juneteenth Matters,” Essence.com.