The photos and videos below are from the annual Mansfield Juneteenth Parade and Festival on Saturday. The event featured representatives from local organizations, churches, political leaders and cheer squads, as well as the En-Rich-Ment fine arts organization from Canton and the Columbus Linden-Mckinley High School Marching Band.
The parade stepped off at the five-way light at the intersection of Marion Avenue and Park Avenue West at 10 a.m. and ended in Central Park downtown, where a festival was scheduled to continue until 6 p.m.
Juneteenth marks the date of June 19, 1865, when Union Gen. Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, Texas, to inform enslaved African Americans of their freedom and that the Civil War had ended. Granger’s announcement put into effect the Emancipation Proclamation, which had been issued nearly two and a half years earlier, on Jan. 1, 1863, by President Abraham Lincoln.
