Juneteenth Jubilee

Joy and community were the hallmarks of the earliest Juneteenth celebrations, bringing people together around music, food and community. The event will feature live music and performances on the Freedom Center plaza. Minority- and woman-owned food trucks will bookend Freedom Way, serving barbecue, Tex Mex, classic cookout favorites and more. And a Community Market featuring local small businesses will give guests an opportunity to shop and support local.

Enjoy extended hours and free admission to the Freedom Center, thanks to the generous support of the Fifth Third Foundation. Experience drop-in programming and mini tours for guests of all ages.

The celebration will culminate in a "second line" style march down the banks to the Ohio River, the symbolic River Jordan over which thousands of enslaved people crossed into freedom on the Underground Railroad.

Lift Every Voice and Sing

Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
‘Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list’ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on ’til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
‘Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.