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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: 05/31/2023
Contact: Stefanie Bowers, Human Rights Coordinator and Equity Director
Phone: 319-356-5022

Office of Equity and Human Rights to host "The Rich History of Emancipation Day Celebrations in Iowa"

The Office of Equity and Human Rights will host a virtual program, "The Rich History of Emancipation Day Celebrations in Iowa," from noon to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, June 14, 2023.

Juneteenth became a recognized holiday in Iowa 21 years ago, when Iowa became the seventh state to officially recognize June 19, 1865, as the date the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas, finally learned that slavery had ended. While Americans have rallied around Juneteenth as a fitting and important date to commemorate the end of slavery, Black Iowans have celebrated and commemorated the end of slavery for at least 166 years.

On June 14th, Dr. Leslie Schwalm will talk about the beginnings of Black Emancipation Day celebrations in Iowa, and explore with the audience how and why Emancipation Day was so important to Iowa's Black communities, especially in the nineteenth century.

Schwalm is a historian of Civil War America and Professor Emeritus of History and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Iowa. Schwalm writes and lectures on how the wartime destruction of slavery shaped the lives of Black and white Americans, North and South. Schwalm is the author of “A Hard Fight For We: Women’s Transition from Slavery to Freedom in South Carolina," “Emancipation’s Diaspora: The Politics of Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest," and more recently, “Medicine, Science, and Making Race in Civil War America”.

The program will be held on Wednesday, June 14 from noon-1 p.m. via Zoom. Pre-registration is required. You can sign up here.

If you will need disability-related accommodations in order to participate in this event, please call 319-356-5022 or humanrights@iowa-city.org. Early requests are strongly encouraged to allow sufficient time to meet your access needs.