Juneteenth 2024
The success of yesterday's fourth annual joint celebration of Juneteenth with the St. Peter's and St. Philip's parishes has been well-documented in our local press, including the main headline in today's Richmond Times Dispatch.
The celebration began with a brief Libation Ceremony in St. John's Churchyard followed by a march to Peter Paul RVA, where participants attended a prayer service and enjoyed a performance by Ezibu Muntu, a West African drum and dance company. The festivities concluded with a picnic at St. Peter's Church.
Peter Paul RVA's executive director provide the day's reflection, including the following remarks:
Chattel slavery, in many ways, has been made out to be a glorious system, which taught the enslaved individuals how to be ‘civilized...Even though we are in the year 2024 with limitless access to resources and technology, there are a number of individuals that still operate in this type of thinking... We, as the unified church, as moral and ethical humans, must be unapologetic in the way we remember and assess the atrocity that was chattel slavery.