PRESS RELEASE: Celebrate Freedom Day 2025 this Thursday at the Tubman Museum

This Thursday, June 19, 2025, will be a day of celebration at the Tubman African American Museum. Special Programs at the Museum begin at 10:00 AM and culminate with the Rock My Soul Awards event beginning at 5:00 PM. Admission to the Museum on June 19th is discounted to $5.00 per person. Admission to the Rock My Soul Awards event is $10.00.

Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated nationally on June 19 to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. Despite the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, freedom did not come for all black people in America at that time. For enslaved people in Texas, it did not come until June 19, 1865, when the Union army arrived in Galveston, Texas and freed the enslaved people there by executive decree. The day became known and celebrated as “Juneteenth” by the newly freed locals.

Special Juneteenth programs begin at the Tubman at 10:00 AM with a reading and signing of the book Florida’s Negro War: The Black Seminoles & The Second Seminole War, 1835 – 1842 by Dr. Anthony Etim Dixon, formerly a professor at Bethune Cookman College in Florida. At 11:00 AM US Army veteran and retied National Park Service Historian Lonnie Davis will read from and sign copies of his book From Slave to Soldier: The Georgia African Brigade. And at 12 Noon Author and Attorney Harold Michael Harvey will present from two of his books, Watch Night and Fab Five. Admission to the Museum during the Freedom Day is discounted to $5.00 per person.

At 5:00 PM the Tubman will conclude its Freedom Day programming with an event that celebrates freedom and Black Music Month. The Rock My Soul Awards event is a celebration of the many contributions that talented, Macon musicians made to the history of American popular music by presenting them the first Tubman Museum Legacy in Music Awards. Inaugural Legacy in Music Award recipients are: Bishop L.M. Bell & the Bell Sisters, Robert Coleman, Newton Collier Jr., Bo Ponder, James Duncan, Tommy Goodwin, Alice Bailey, Beatrice Cotton, The Cotton Brothers, Robert Scott, and Oscar Jackson. The Rock My Soul event will also feature a Dance party with music by DJ Soopa Dave, refreshments, and a cash bar. The Dance party is from 5:00 to 8:00. Special admission to this event is $10.00 per person.

Contact the Tubman Museum at 478-743-8544 for more information about Freedom Day programs and other upcoming special events.