At The 11th Hour Akron Cancelled Juneteenth Weekend Celebrations

On June 2, 2024 Akron, Ohio made national news. Not because of their favorite son LeBron James but because of a horrific mass shooting that claimed the life of 1 man with 27 others being injured in a shooting at block party on Akron’s east side. No person nor person’s have been arrested at this time in connection with an incident.

Fast-forwarding to this past weekend, Juneteenth 2024 weekend in Akron, OH. Juneteenth celebrations were scheduled throughout the day this past weekend but none took place. They were all canceled because on Friday night, City of Akron officials made a last-minute decision to cancel all large public events this weekend due to safety concerns in the wake of the mass shooting that took place in Akron on June 2.

On Friday night at the 11th hour, Akron Mayor Shammas Malik announced the cancellation of 11 public events this weekend (not only Juneteenth celebrations but all public events), sharing a letter he received from eight Akron councilmembers asking that the weekend’s Juneteenth celebrations be canceled.

The City of Akron plans on holding a Juneteenth celebration inside John S. Knight center on June 19, 2024.

Juneteenth is an important part of American and Akron history, and the first event honoring Juneteenth in the city began 26 years ago.

Juneteenth, officially celebrated June 19, remembers the day when the last enslaved person in the United States became free in 1865. President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation Jan. 1, 1863, which abolished slavery in Confederate states, but it was not until about 2½ years later that Union troops had stopped the last remaining slavery acts in the country when they arrived in Texas.

Also known as African American Emancipation Day, it became a federal holiday in 2021.

At The 11th Hour Akron Cancelled Juneteenth Weekend Celebrations was originally published on wzakcleveland.com