Press Release
JUNTEENTH OBERLIN 2025
Oberlin Juneteenth | P.O. Box 604 | Oberlin, OH 44074
Oberlin, OH—The Juneteenth Oberlin Executive Board is proud to present this year’s annual Juneteenth
Celebration Festival, “Working Together on a Spiritual Level for Freedom” on June 13th and 14th, 2025, with a
fashion show on Friday the 13th from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., all day festivities on Saturday the 14th from 9:00
a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and memorial services on Saturday the 14th from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Juneteenth celebrates June 19th, 1865, considered the date when the last enslaved people in America were
freed. Although news of President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation had been widespread,
total nationwide emancipation was only achieved when Union troops entered Galveston, Texas, two and a half
years later, after the Civil War ended. While its roots are in Texas, Juneteenth has become a federal holiday,
symbolizing the end of slavery and a day to celebrate the beginning of freedom all over the United States.
Oberlin’s history of commitment to abolition and the cause of freedom makes Juneteenth particularly special in
our community.
This year’s Juneteenth will be held at the intersection of Main Street and Edison Street, in the George A.
Abram Pavilion and the nearby Roundhouse lawn. Oberlin Juneteenth is a grassroots organization run by
everyday working people from families with strong ties to the neighboring southeast quadrant -- long the only
place Black people could live in Oberlin. We will be working again with the Oberlin Underground Railroad
Center, and the Roundhouse will be open for viewing.
In the evening of Friday, June 13th, the Juneteenth Fashion Show will return to Oberlin, to dazzle the
Roundhouse from 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.
Daytime Juneteenth festivities will begin on Saturday, the 14th, at 9:00 a.m. with an opening prayer by Rev.
Laurence Nevels and a reading of the Emancipation Proclamation by Oberlin College alumna Donnay Edmund.
Dr. Mary Ann Harris will share spellbinding tales honed over 20 years of prolific and inspiring storytelling. A DJ,
line dancing, and the soulful jazz of the Blu Pi Band will animate the day. Food vendors, merchants, and local
non-profits’ informational booths will be on site. Children’s activities will be offered all day, including horseback
riding.
The Juneteenth Parade will start at 12:00 noon and follow last year’s route, beginning at Spring Street Park
and moving through southeast Oberlin along Groveland Street to Pleasant Street to the Roundhouse and the
Abram Pavilion on Edison Street. The parade will feature musicians and dancers, clowns and candy, motorcycles,
old school cars, Dazzling Diamond Steelmen Cheerleaders, Deltas, and Freedom Riders on horseback.
Evening services will begin at 6:30 p.m. to commemorate the pain, suffering, and loss of life of Africans in
the Diaspora during the centuries-long Maafa, also known as the Holocaust of Enslavement. Led by Ms. Ade
Sharpley at Oberlin’s Westwood Cemetery, the Maafa ceremony will begin with an invocation by Rev. Laurence
Nevels. We will honor the legacy of Mrs. Jessie Reeder with family and friends, and Shirley Chambers will lead us
in song. We will lay flowers at the grave of Mrs. Reeder and select others in a small ceremony concluding the
Maafa service.
This year we dedicate ourselves to working together on a spiritual level for the continued march towards
freedom. Mrs. Margaret Christian will not be in attendance this year due to health reasons, but the Juneteenth
Committee will be giving her flowers of appreciation for her dedication to Juneteenth and her outstanding
knowledge of Oberlin’s history and present. Ms. Ade Sharpley, who coordinated the Juneteenth festival for over
two decades, will continue to lead the Maafa services. The Juneteenth Oberlin Executive Board is imbued with
a new spirit -- Valerie Lawson has taken over as chairperson, working with Board members distinguished by
generations-long commitment to the community and to freedom: Gail Abram, Fijabi Julien-Gallam, LaKrisha
Harris, and Alesha Caine.
If you or anyone you know would be interested in joining in the success of coordinating Oberlin’s
Juneteenth celebrations, feel free to contact Valerie Lawson or any Executive Board member by email at
OberlinJuneteenth@gmail.com.
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