Blair County holds first Juneteenth Jubilee

BLAIR COUNTY, Pa. (WTAJ) — Juneteenth celebrations filled the streets of America and here in Central Pa. throughout the week.

The first-ever Juneteenth Jubilee took place in Blair County Saturday to commemorate and celebrating Freedom Fighters throughout the county’s history. 

“If we’re about freedom as one of those things we say here in the United States, this is a day of freedom,” Community Historian Harriett Gaston said. 

The celebration took place at The St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and during the ceremony, it was filled with songs and prayer. 

“We all should be celebrating that freedom and then maybe recognizing there would be other places that are not free. So as we like to say, this is one part of history, if we don’t want to repeat it, let’s do something about it,” Gaston said. 

The celebration allows the entire community to come together under one roof and mark a monumental day in Blair County history. 

“It’s a great unity point to have this jubilee today and an opportunity for the first time in years for many of the area’s predominantly African-American churches, to come together again,” Andrae Holsey, President of the Blair County NAACP said. 

Holsey also spoke during the ceremony and had an important message for the entire crowd. 

“You can be a freedom fighter, too, and that the freedom fight hasn’t stopped. It’s not just on Juneteenth, It’s every day, all the time. And it can’t be the same people all the time,” he said. 

The service also included the reading of fallen troops of color during the Civil War.