A Torch Lit Night Walk Along the Trail of Enslaved Africans at 5:30 p.m., June 13, will immerse attendees in narratives, the historical record and music. It is a sacred, poignant pilgrimage of recognition and acknowledgement.

Janine Bell, president and artistic director of the Elegba Folklore Society, says, “In celebrating our ancestors who labored in bondage until the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation and those in Texas for whom freedom was delayed, attendees can expect an affirming, joyful and thoughtful gathering to be with one another and to say thank-you for the strong shoulders upon which we stand. Understanding how we got to where we are is a perpetual roadmap towards actualizing a liberated future.”

Juneteenth, A Freedom Celebration, presents a time when particularly people of African descent can surround themselves energetically with ancestral vibration to recognize and see within themselves the foundational presence of African people in Richmond and the Americas. Since the 1500s, African people were trafficked in the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans. Beginning in the 1680s, Africans to be sold landed at Richmond’s Manchester Dock for an entire century. African people, along with colonizers and enslavers, encountered indigenous people throughout the Americas whose civilizations were also permanently upended.

Then, boatloads of enslaved Africans were exported to the Deep South from Richmond’s riverside, Rocketts Landing, in coffles, and by rail until 1865.  It was not until June 19, 1865, two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted, that enslaved Africans in Texas, a cotton production holdout, were finally freed by a federal government decree as carried out and embodied by the Union Army.

Come again from 2 to 7 p.m. June 14, for Dancing with the Ancestors at the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground. White attire is requested, and ancestral offerings are accepted.