Juneteeth in February, Anyone

Black History Month 2010 we will be celebrating “Juneteenth”.

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration commemorating the ending of slavery in the US. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th in Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that the enslaved were now now free. -www.juneteenth.com

Our activities for the celebration will include an art display by Annie Lee. Annie Lee is known for her realistic and humorous portrayals of contemporary and historical African American family life. Once again I purchased a wall calendar of Annie Lee’s work, this will give 12 pictures to display. Tip: wall calendars go on sale during the month of Feb. so plan ahead to save money.

We will have another Tasting. In all my research on Juneteeth Celebrations, people say it is a must to have a red soda. Because Juneteenth originated in Texas, we have chosen Big Red Soda. Big Red is not distributed in our corner of NC (northeast), so most of our students have not tasted Big Red before. We picked up our soda at Wal-Mart in Charlotte NC, while we were attending the AASL conference. We will have teachers sign-up in advance to bring in whole classes for the Tasting. I can accommodate 9 classes of 30 students. The teachers will collect the money for the tasting (this one being 10 cents per student) . Any student not wanting to participate can opt out of the Tasting, but will still come for the very short PowerPoint Presentation.

So that is our plan. I will post a picture or two after the event and leave a comment.