Tracy joins Juneteenth celebration
by TP staff
Jun 12, 2012 | 1744 views | 0 0 comments | 8 8 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Line dancing, for fun and exercise, became part of Saturday’s Juneteenth Celebration in Lincoln Park when members of a Stockton line-dance group provided instruction for celebration participants.  Sam Matthews/Tracy Press
Line dancing, for fun and exercise, became part of Saturday’s Juneteenth Celebration in Lincoln Park when members of a Stockton line-dance group provided instruction for celebration participants. Sam Matthews/Tracy Press
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On June 19, 1865, Union Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, Texas, with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now free.

The announcement is celebrated every year as Juneteenth by communities across the United States, with Tracy joining in for the 18th consecutive year Saturday, June 9, with a party at Lincoln Park.

At the day-long program, sponsored by the Tracy African American Association, booths with food, crafts, a kids corner, information and clothing flanked the city’s portable stage, where entertainment continued all day.

Many of those at the park became active participants when they took part in line dancing, directed by members of Lady T and the Stockton Soul Train Line Dancers.

Proceeds from the celebration help fund the association’s Wayne Nelson Academic Scholarship Program, which give a boost to graduating high school seniors bound for further education.

Juneteenth, celebrated each year throughout the U.S., marks the ending of slavery in Texas following the end of the Civil War.

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