(STURGIS) – It was the first time a Juneteenth Celebration was held in Sturgis, but organizers are hoping it will happen for many years to come.

Friday afternoon the community was invited to come to Free Church Park to participate in the celebration. Event Co-organizer Angie Wilson shares what was going on. ...... {LISTEN}.

Wilson says she never heard anything negative about putting on the event. ...... {LISTEN}.

On June 19, 1865, two months after the surrender of General Robert E. Lee, Union General Gordon Granger and 1,800 federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to take control of the state and enforce the Emancipation Proclamation.

While the Proclamation had been issued on January 1, 1863, it only applied to slaves being freed in places under Confederate control, and not to slave holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control.