Description: The first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and other Emancipation Day celebrations, told through photographs, art, and an engrossing narrative from an award-winning historian.
For more than 150 years, Black communities have gathered to honor freedom, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for true liberation. While Juneteenth has recently gained wider recognition, it was one of many Emancipation Day traditions celebrated across the United States. These observances were spaces of joy, remembrance, and resistance--even as the fight for full freedom was unfinished. This volume brings together stirring essays and striking images from Juneteenth and beyond, offering a sweeping portrait of how Black people have created and sustained rituals of remembrance, a testament to the generations who, through celebration and storytelling, demanded that their contributions to the making of America be fully recognized.Review Quotes: "This is a portal. This is time travel facilitated by one of the great historians of our time. Thanks to Blair Kelley, we can go to an important fissure in the story of domination. We can wonder new wonderings and ask new questions about freedom. We can look love in the face and see what it is asking of us now."--Alexis Pauline Gumbs, award-winning author of Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde