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Why We Commemorate Juneteenth

a presentation by Dr. Richard Bell

Attend a presentation about Juneteenth, officially Juneteenth National Independence Day - a federal holiday to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States.

Over the course of four years, enslaved people worked to turn the Civil War into a freedom war. Slowly but surely, they pushed President Abraham Lincoln and his commanders in the field toward embracing emancipation as a war aim and to compel them to take the giant steps forward needed to abolish slavery once and for all. On June 19, 1865, the federal government finally met that objective, declaring slavery dead across the country. This momentous event marked a new birth of freedom—an occasion we now commemorate as Juneteenth.

Join historian, Dr. Richard Bell, for a presentation on history surrounding Juneteenth. Dr. Bell received a BA from the University of Cambridge and a PhD from Harvard University. He joined the Department of History at the University of Maryland in 2006, earned tenure in 2012 and promotion to the rank of full professor in 2020.

Dr. Bell has published four books and more than a dozen articles and book chapters. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress. He is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. 

Sponsored by Friends of the Library, Montgomery County, Inc.

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