Volunteers in North Texas are needed for an upcoming service project and community event in honor of Juneteenth. Nonprofit organization, Christ Community Connection, is hosting a cemetery cleanup on Saturday, June 15, 2024. Volunteers are asked to bring paintbrushes, rakes, large garbage bags, weed eaters, and shovels. Registration is requested.
“After a Google search for National Black Cemeteries in our area, I found the Carrollton Cemetery and connected with the ground's keeper and native resident, Reverend Willie Rainwater,” said Linda Williams, who has been to the event many times.
“This will be my third year of service with him in the annual clean-up and restoration of this historical site and celebration of Juneteenth. Once threatened by new development, the site is a record of the early history of Carrollton and it is a great opportunity to serve, celebrate Juneteenth and learn the history of the city's early black settlers.”
Juneteenth Celebration
Following the Carrollton Black Cemetery Cleanup is a special Juneteenth Celebration at 10:30 a.m. featuring poems, dances, and speeches. Awards will be presented to outstanding Older Black American Trail Blazers.
About Juneteenth
Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, TX in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday. It was around 1979, when Texas declared Juneteenth a state holiday and on June 17, 2021, it became a federal holiday.
Address: 1535 W. Beltline Rd., Carrollton, TX 75006.
Directions:
Come to the backside of Romco Equipment Co., 1519 W. Beltline Rd.
Enter in and veer right, follow the road to the Historical Black Cemetery.