Coming up: Juneteenth celebration

There will be a free community party on Saturday, June 22, 2024, to celebrate Juneteenth (the end of slavery in the United States).

It will be at the Gibson Park bandshell from noon until 3 pm.

There will be an educational program, free food, music, and games. Click here for more information.

The event is co-sponsored by the Great Falls Public Library and the YWCA Great Falls.

• Arcade bar opens in Great Falls
• Teen dies in Cascade County crash
• Obituary: Paulette Duryee
• PHOTOS: rare white bison calf

A combination of the words June and nineteenth, Juneteenth commemorates the day when the last enslaved Black Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned that they were free.

This life-changing information arrived two months after the end of the Civil War, and two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

In 2021, President Joe Biden officially made June 19th a federal holiday.

Video from the 2021 Juneteenth celebration: