We challenge all local organizations, businesses, government officials, churches, as well as state and national entities, to consider actions appropriate to your group.
Read. Listen. Visit. Engage! Everyone who reads can read the Emancipation Proclamation! Read it at a meeting of your organization!
Here's some other ideas!
~ Read books (to children, or with children, or as a family, or as part of a Sunday School class, or a circle of friends);
~ View online films, documentaries, and other relevant videos (referenced here), as a family or organization;
~ Visit historical sites relevant to African American life, individually, or as a group.
------ Read. Read. Read. ------
Visit the Paul Sawyier Library Public Library. Ask to see their books, children's and adult, about Juneteenth. Email in advance & ask about Juneteenth books. Use this link to email Diane Dehoney at the Library.
A number of children's books about Juneteenth have been published. Here are a few:
~ Juneteenth Jamboree By Carole Boston Weatherford, Illustrated by Yvonne Buchanan
~ Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper
~ All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom by Angela Johnson. This books is available, read aloud, on YouTube, through the previous link, or click on the video at the right. Many thanks to the New Hampshire Humanities Council.
~ Juneteenth (On My Own Holidays (Paperback) by Drew Nelson
Books for adult readers relevant to Juneteenth are numerous. Here is a reading list to give some ideas. Again, check at the Paul Sawyier Public Library (email Diane Dehoney) to see which they might have available.
If you would like to purchase these or any other books related to emancipation, slavery, Juneteenth or related topics, contact our own Poor Richard's Books, in downtown Frankfort. Phone ahead to order, 502-223-8018, or email poorrbooks@aol.com.
Or visit Poor Richards Books at 233 W Broadway St., Frankfort, KY.
To read, listen, converse and learn, join a local Book Club - While at Poor Richards, you can view the many selections read by the Frankfort group, Frankfort Anti-Racism Advocates or F.A.R.A. The club meets on the 4th Tuesday of each month, 6:30 pm., with Zoom meetings until otherwise established. Before COVID-19, F.A.R.A. met at the Paul Sawyier Public Library. To join F.A.R.A.'s book group, click on either name, David Rome or Carol Baughman & email one of the facilitators; or if you're on Facebook, click on the link and ask to join the Frankfort Anti-Racism Advocates group.
Or, you could work with Poor Richard's Books to establish a local Juneteenth Book Group! Several online Juneteenth book groups are open to online participants.
Return to Together Frankfort homepage - OR -
Explore other pages about Juneteenth:
~ Visit local and nearby historic sites, relevant to African American heritage and Juneteenth.
~ Attend a Juneteenth event in a nearby community or one of the many online events.
~ Learn about efforts to make Juneteenth a national holiday - and how YOU can get involved!
Books and online publications about slavery, Black history, and African American life in Kentucky are also available. Here is just a start. Click here to recommend others!
African American Miners and Migrants: THE EASTERN KENTUCKY SOCIAL CLUB, Thomas E. Wagner, Philip J. Obermiller · 2010
~ "A History of Blacks in Kentucky: From Slavery to Segregation, 1760-1891" by Marion B. Lucas, Western Kentucky University
~ "Community Memories: A Glimpse of African American Life in Frankfort, Kentucky," Winona L. Fletcher, Sheila Mason Burton, James E. Wallace · 2003 [This book is a MUST READ!]
~ "The Last Black King of the Kentucky Derby: The Story of Jimmy Winkfield" by Crystal Hubbard, 2008
~ "In Their Own Words," Online overview of historical African American historical sites in Kentucky. KY Dept. of Tourism
~ "Slavery in Kentucky: A Civil War Casualty," by Lowell H. Harrison Western Kentucky University, 1983
~ "The Kentucky African American Encyclopedia," by Gerald L. Smith, Karen Cotton McDaniel, John A. Hardin · 2015
~ "The Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (NKAA)" free online collection of entries about people, places, events, and communities; started in 2003, when the project was established as a website.
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Photo from Facebook Page, African American Schools of Frankfort, KY. The page "seeks to preserve the memory of the educational institutions that provided the cultural background for Frankfort's African-American community."
The page provides connections to those who attended Frankfort's African American schools, as well as pictures of the buildings, the students at the time, and other valuable information. Click this link .
2021 Juneteenth in Frankfort, Kentucky
Opportunities for Participation & Learning - Read about Juneteenth
This video from the William Laman Public Library in Arkansas, shares the book "Juneteenth" by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson & Drew Nelson. The reading is part of "Shannan's Storytime" series, with Shannan Hicks.
For a better understanding, these books were recommended by a number of scholars to learn more about Juneteenth, slavery and Black history:
~ "The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery & the Making of American Capitalism" by Edward E. Baptist
~ "Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery & Restitution in America" by W. Caleb McDaniel
~ "Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America" by Dr. Ibram X. Kendi
~ "Stony the Road" by Henry Louis Gates Jr.
~ "The Water Dancer" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
~ "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead
~ "My Vanishing Country" by Bakari Sellers
~ "We Were Eight Years in Power" by Ta-Nehisi Coates
~ "Black Pain" by Terrie Williams
~ "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin
~ "Here I Stand" by Paul Robeson
~ "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson
~ "The Strange Career of Jim Crow" by C. Vann Woodward
~ "Mirror to America" by John Hope Franklin
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Photo from Kentucky Educational Television's
Educational Programs about the Underground Railroad
--- Online - read & watch ---
Watch videos online or check them out from the library! A wealth of educational videos emphasizing lessons to be learned from studying America's involvement in enslavement, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Jim Crow Era, and present-day issues of racial injustice.
The following list only a few of those available online for free, and for purchase from various sources.
Kentucky Educational Television (KET) offers a range of historical shows & online resources related to Emancipation, slavery, Juneteenth, and related topics. View these with family & friends, or on your own. Click on the links below:
- Kentucky's Underground Railroad: Passage to Freedom looks at the fugitive slave movement in this 1 hour documentary.
- Many Kentucky people and sites played critical roles in the story of slavery, abolitionism, and the Underground Railroad. Though no actual railroad existed, the term refers to the escape of enslaved African Americans through secret pathways, both with and without assistance.
- The links above includes an online documentary, resource lists, lesson plans, & numerous articles about Kentucky's involvement with the Underground railroad.
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- The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, in downtown Cincinnati, is just a few steps from the banks of the Ohio River, the great natural barrier that separated the slave states of the South from the free states of the North (illustrated by the map to the right, showing state lines & their designation as slave states or free states).
- Since opening in 2004, the Center has filled a substantial void in our nation’s cultural heritage. Rooted in the stories of the Underground Railroad, the Center illuminates the true meaning of inclusive freedom by presenting permanent and special exhibits that inspire, public programming that provoke dialogue and action, and educational resources that equip modern abolitionists.
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- Click here to learn more about the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center & how you can get involved.- or even visit!
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- Click links below to tour the Center's exhibits, download books, or view their films.
- ~ Tour the Center's Permanent Exhibits - Online-
- ~ Explore the Center's wealth of online educational resources, including lesson plans, online Special Exhibits, activity pages with downloadable books and coloring pages, and a host of other resources.
- ~ Review the Center's vast online film library, with almost 2 dozen films ranging in topics from mass incarceration & racism to the strong bonds of family in the African American community.
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Watch the video as "All Different Now: Juneteenth, the First Day of Freedom" by Angela Johnson, is read aloud. Read one of these books aloud and make your own YouTube video!