Juneteenth at the Academy Art Museum
Saturday, June 20 | 12 PM – 4 PM | Free and Open to All

Join the Academy Art Museum for its 16th annual Juneteenth celebration—a free, daylong event honoring the voices, history, and lived experiences of Easton’s historic Hill Community, one of the oldest free African American neighborhoods in the United States.

Each year, the Museum’s Juneteenth celebration is shaped around a different theme—highlighting the many ways culture, history, and community are expressed and remembered. In past years, this has included topics such as basketball, storytelling, and creative expression. This year, we turn our focus to the Hill Community itself, centering the people, places, and stories that continue to define this vital neighborhood.

This year’s program emphasizes connection and shared experience. Highlights include guided tours of the Hill led by local community members, a teen essay showcase in partnership with Shore Lit, hands-on art activities for children, and a selection of local food vendors.

The day will also feature a lecture by artist Tawny Chatmon from 3–4 PM, along with opportunities for conversation and engagement with regional partners including Building African American Minds, the Frederick Douglass Honor Society, and the Talbot County Free Library.

Inside the Museum, a special atrium installation will present artifacts uncovered from the site of the future Freeman Annex & Hormel Research Center, offering a deeper understanding of the families and histories rooted in this land.

Additional programming includes a mural project led by Artist-in-Residence Esteban del Valle in collaboration with Talbot Mentors, and an exhibition of work by Tawny Chatmon.

Free and open to all, this year’s Juneteenth celebration is an invitation to gather, reflect, and connect—grounded in local history and looking toward a shared future.

About Juneteenth
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when news of emancipation reached enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas—more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued. It has long been celebrated as a day of freedom, resilience, and cultural expression within African American communities, and in 2021 it was officially recognized as a federal holiday through the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act.

Here on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, the story of emancipation is also marked by local traditions such as Nace’s Day in nearby Trappe—an annual celebration established in 1867 to honor the moment freedom was realized in this region following Maryland’s abolition of slavery in 1864. Together, these histories remind us that while freedom was declared nationally, it was experienced—and continues to be remembered—through the stories of individual communities.