Celebrating Juneteenth

On January 1st, 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

Sadly, it took more than two years for that news to reach enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, when on June 19, 1865 Union soldiers arrived to report that the Confederacy had surrendered two months earlier and that enslaved people were now free. Though it has long been celebrated among Black communities it is a history that has been marginalized and still remains largely unknown to the wider public. We honor and celebrate the day that all black Americans became free, and we continue to strive for racial equality for all black Americans as part of our mission in recognizing every face and every story.

In commemoration of Juneteenth we wish to share with you a panel from our exhibition 15 Years of New Discoveries: Rensselaer County’s Black History. We will share more of these discoveries over the next few weeks, and rest assured the exhibition will still be in place when we reopen for visitation. We hope that you find the story of Rev. Stinney and the Bethel Baptist Church as inspiring as we did when we first heard about his extraordinary mission to help black individuals and families escape oppression in the south and start a new life in Rensselaer County. See below!