Rebuilding one of the nation's oldest Black churches to begin at Juneteenth ceremony

Rebuilding one of the nation’s oldest Black churches to begin at Juneteenth ceremony

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — A ceremonial groundbreaking will be held Thursday for the rebuilding of one of the nation’s oldest Black churches, whose congregants first gathered outdoors in secret before constructing a wooden meetinghouse in Virginia. The First Baptist Church of Williamsburg officially established itself in 1776, although parishioners met before then in fields and under…

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A guide to what the Juneteenth holiday is and how to celebrate it

A guide to what the Juneteenth holiday is and how to celebrate it

It was 160 years ago that enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, learned they had been freed — after the Civil War’s end and two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The resulting Juneteenth holiday — it’s name combining “June” and “nineteenth” — has only grown in one-and-a-half centuries. In 2021, President Joe Biden designated…

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