Juneteenth Celebration in Smithfield!

Greetings Fellow Member

Attached is the program of enactments and lectures on Juneteenth in Smithfield - 6/19.  Our Board Member Beverly is a co-leader of the events of the day!

Bring your lawn chairs for the outdoor activities at the Main Street Stage, maybe an umbrella, and there are also presentations inside the 1750 Courthouse.

The Historical Society is pleased to announce two presentations that will take place INSIDE Main Street Baptist Church...air conditioned, dry, with plenty of parking and just across the street from the Schoolhouse Museum :)

11:30 am Contraband 1    THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF SLAVERY in the USA - Main St. Baptist Church

Beginning the day after Virginia seceded, at the beginning of the Civil War, enslaved people in Hampton Roads began liberating themselves by becoming “Contrabands”, escaping to Ft. Monroe and later at other Union forts and camps -- momentous first steps leading to Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  Aspects of this story is enacted by two members of the Contraband Historical Society, TONY GABRIELE as General Benjamin Butler and PHIL ADDERLEY as the Reverend William Roscoe Davis.  PHIL and TONY will then discuss the many ways the Society preserves this neglected history and brings it to the public.

1:00 pm Contraband 2      HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE of CIVIL WAR CONTRABANDS - Main St. Baptist Church

Learn from historian JOHN QUARSTEIN about Fort Monroe as “Freedom’s Fortress”, which became a place of hope for thousands of enslaved people during the Civil War.

In May 1861, three enslaved men, Frank Baker, James Townsend, and Shepard Mallory, escaped across the James River to Union-occupied Fort Monroe, challenging the legal status of fugitive slaves a day after Virginia seceded at the beginning of the Civil War. General Benjamin Butler refused to return them to their owner, designating them as "contraband of war", enemy property used to aid the Confederacy. This landmark legal position sparked a mass of self-emancipating individuals.  This presentation explores how the contraband policy shifted the war's purpose toward emancipation, to the Proclamation by President Lincoln, and led to numerous communities around Union forts and camps.

There is a full schedule tomorrow, but note that several presentations at other venues are given twice when planning for Contraband 1 and Contraband 2.

Celebrate!

Please note that while it would be REALLY interesting if the Quiet Storm Drumline performed at 12:00 AM on Main Street, they will be performing at Noon, 12:00 PM. And Randall Booth will be at 12:15 PM, although he was probably hiding records at night :)