Hundreds view Saluda parade and church program
by Larry Chowning –
The clouds parted and the sun broke through at the start of the inaugural annual Middlesex County Juneteenth parade at Middlesex High School on Saturday.
The little bit of rain on Saturday did not dampen the Saluda event. Several hundred people attended as Black-owned businesses and food trucks in the county sold their wares on MHS grounds. The parade stretched from the high school to the Historic Middlesex County Courthouse. On Sunday another several hundred people attended the service and events at Lebanon Baptist Church in Saluda.
Juneteenth is a national celebration of the emancipation of slavery in the United States. The event started in the state of Texas as a celebration of the emancipation of slaves in the Galveston area of the state.
The celebration has spread to the rest of the country. President Joe Biden signed legislation recently to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, enshrining June 19 as the national day to commemorate the end of slavery. Organizers of the Middlesex observance decided to wait a week, so as not to conflict with other area Juneteenth celebrations.
Virginia was a slave state and Middlesex County was a slave county. Prior to the end of the war, freedom came to Middlesex slaves in several different ways. Some escaped to freedom through the underground railroad, while others joined the Union army during the Civil War…
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