Freedom and unity will be celebrated Friday in Meadville with the fourth annual Juneteenth Community Celebration

The day commemorates June 19, 1865, when a Union general delivered news to Galveston, Texas, that the Civil War had ended and those enslaved were to be freed — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Emancipation Proclamation.

Juneteenth commemorates African-American freedom and emphasizes education and achievement.

“It really marks and denotes the beginning of knowing and being free,” said Sam Byrd, president of the Meadville chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People).

“This has never just been a black struggle even though the primary beneficiaries were blacks,” said Byrd. “It’s involved people of all races and hues involved in freedom and anyone interested in facilitating that effort.”

This year’s free public celebration, “A Community Celebration of Freedom” is from 1 to 6 p.m. at Meadville’s Diamond Park. Byrd said it’s planned as an outdoor event with no rain location. “We’re praying for sunshine,” he said.

Featured guest will be Charles Kennedy, a rostered artist with the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and other performers providing re-enactments of African-American heritage.

Rev. Adrianne Rush as Elizabeth Waters, in full costume, will provide a snapshot of life before the Civil War as a 13-year-old girl in the home of the conductor of the Underground Railroad, her father, Hamilton Waters. She also will speak about what it cost her to seek and obtain an education when most girls her age were preparing for marriage.

Angela Johnson will lead a sing-along of spirituals and hymns.

Betty Novecki and Elizabeth Dunn, costumed interpreters, will recall some of the struggles of abolitionists who worked so hard to obtain freedom for Africans enslaved in the U.S.

Closing the program will be a ring shout with the public invited to join in. When enslaved Africans were forbidden to dance — raising their feet more than a couple inches from the ground— they reverted to the circle dances of West Africa. This became a form of worship as they struggled to hold on to life in the midst of suffering.

Other local entertainment will include an American Shotokan karate exhibition with Master Arnold Johnson, a youth drill team from United Faith Fellowship Church of God, BCH dance troupe, poetry by Dianne Manning, as well as inspirational readings by area youth — Demarius Newsome, Antiqua King and Killan Byrd.

Cultural and educational artifacts also will be on display.

Keith Gushard can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at kgushard@meadvilletribune.com.