Photos: Juneteenth Anchorage citywide celebration

Crowds gathered over the weekend on Anchorage’s Delaney Park Strip for the city’s Juneteenth citywide celebration. It marked the start of a week of events celebrating Black excellence and culture, with opportunities for education, community gathering and reflection.

“Juneteenth to me means celebrating our freedom and recognizing how far we have come as a community, and the excitement and the opportunities where we could go as well,” said Anchorage entrepreneur Jasmin Smith, who helped organize the event.

“The root of the celebration this weekend is the Emancipation Proclamation from 1865 that said all the slaves in the farthest reaches of the union were free. So, we’re not all free until we are all free and that’s why we celebrate. This is the largest celebration we have ever had.”

Juneteenth commemorates the day that the last slaves in the Confederacy were informed of their freedom following the Emancipation Proclamation on June 19, 1865. Long celebrated, Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021. Last year, the Anchorage Assembly made Juneteenth an official city holiday, and the Alaska Legislature this year passed a bill to designate Juneteenth as a state holiday.

Additional events are scheduled for this week.

[Here are 6 opportunities to celebrate Juneteenth in Anchorage]