(19 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Portsmouth, New Hampshire – 19 June 2025
1. Akwaaba Ensemble making its way to the front of the event
2. SOUNDBITE (English) JerriAnne Boggis, Executive Director, Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire:
"So the Black, the African burying ground was built over, covered on, erased from memory. And it’s so important that this time we’re gathered here during Juneteenth 2025, which is a commemoration two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was made by our then-president Lincoln that freed the enslaved African and African Americans."
3. Akwaaba Ensemble performing
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Rev. Robert Thompson, Director Emeritus, Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire:
"I imagine the emotions they felt when they heard that that document had been signed and that they were free. I imagine among the things they would have felt when they found out, that they heard about it two years late. Maybe there was some joy. There might have been some anger. I would have been a little ticked off I think to have known that I had been free for two years, but nobody didn’t bother to tell me?"
5. Musical group performing
STORYLINE:
By the time the drumming and dancing starts Thursday, an organization that promotes African American history and culture in New Hampshire will have hosted nearly a dozen events to celebrate Juneteenth.
The Black Heritage Trail of New Hampshire’s weekslong celebration will culminate with the rededication of the African Burying Ground Memorial Park in Portsmouth and a community dance. But those who planned the history tours, community discussions and other events to commemorate June 19, 1865 — the day Union solders brought the news of freedom to enslaved Black people in Texas — also were looking ahead to next year’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Executive Director JerriAnne Boggis said her organization and other partners want to highlight contradictions in the familiar narratives about the nation’s founding fathers.
Juneteenth has been celebrated by Black Americans for generations, but became more widely celebrated after former President Joe Biden designated it a federal holiday in 2021. It is recognized at least as an observance in every state, and nearly 30 states and Washington, D.C., have designated it as a permanent paid or legal holiday through legislation or executive action. But this year’s celebrations come as President Donald Trump has banned diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or DEI, in the federal government and removed content about Black American history from federal websites.
The White House said last week that plans for a Juneteenth event or proclamation this year have not been decided. During his first administration, Trump issued statements each June 19, including one that ended with “On Juneteenth 2017, we honor the countless contributions made by African Americans to our Nation and pledge to support America’s promise as the land of the free.”
The bitter national debates about Trump’s travel ban and DEI initiatives haven’t overshadowed celebrations of the end of slavery in the U.S., however, and events are happening around the country Thursday.
New Hampshire, one of the nation’s whitest states, is not among those with a permanent Juneteenth holiday, and Boggis said her hope that lawmakers would take action is waning.
Still, she hopes New Hampshire’s events and others elsewhere will make a difference.
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