Amherst Will Celebrate Juneteenth With Events on Sunday June 14 and Friday June 19

Sources: Ancestral Bridges, Black Business Association of Amherst Area, and amherstma.gov

The Ancestral Bridges Foundation, the Black Business Association of Amherst Area and Sankofa Gumbo will sponsor activities on June 14 and June 19 to celebrate Juneteenth (see also here), which marks the historic moment on or around June 19,1865 when Union Army soldiers entered Galveston, Texas with news of freedom coming from the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863.

Ancestral Bridges 6th Annual Juneteenth Legacy Celebration: A Homecoming, Sunday, June 14, 2026
A homecoming 160+ years in the making, Ancestral Bridges will honor the Black and Afro-Indigenous soldiers from Amherst who served in the Massachusetts 54th Regiment and 5th Cavalry during the Civil War. This Juneteenth, we remember and celebrate them together. We will honor their legacy, uplift the generations that followed, and create a space that reflects the kind of community we want to be today. We will celebrate with a homecoming in their honor on the 161st anniversary of their walk home. The commemoration will take place at the West Cemetery on Triangle St. at Noon.

Afterward, come with us as we move from an invigorating remembrance at West Cemetery to a homecoming celebration beginning at 1 p.m. at Ancestral Bridges, 29A Cottage St., featuring Avery Sharpe with a Juneteenth jazz set in tribute to Gil Roberts and Dr. Fred Tillis. This year, we welcome Pam Tillis, who will share memories of her father, Amherst musician and Ancestral Bridges icon Gil Roberts, and guide us on a journey across time and geography — from UMass to Amherst College to backyard improv sessions in Amherst, Massachusetts to Reedy Chapel in Galveston, Texas, where the 5th Cavalry stood in 1865. 

More info at the Ancestral Bridges website.

17th Annual Juneteenth Jubilee, Friday June 19
The Black Business Association of Amherst Area (BBAAA) and Sankofa Gumbo proudly present the 17th Annual Juneteenth Jubilee on Friday, June 19 from 3-6 p.m. at St. Bridgid’s Parish Auditorium, 43 N. Prospect St. The celebration will incorporate the Mass Humanities’ program, Reading Frederick Douglass Together, featuring keynote speaker, historian Dr. Amilcar Shabazz.

Rep. Mindy Domb will give remarks during sn awards ceremony, where honors will be bestowed on Kathleen Anderson, Co-Chair of the New England Chapter National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N’COBRA) who will receive the inaugural Extraordinary Leadership Award, and UMass Amherst 21st Century Leader Charles Walker-Hoover who will receive the Youth Excellence Award.

Other program highlights include drumming, dancing, an interactive fashion show and a vendor marketplace. There will be open mic for spoken word, hip-hop performances and inspiring gospel music. Africana Bowl and Talk of the Town will prepare food for the community buffet. BBAAA member Alysia Bryant of Carefree Cakery has been commissioned to do two cakes—one for Juneteenth and another to celebrate BBAAA’s tenth year anniversary of providing networking, mentorship and technical assistance to local entrepreneurs.

BBAAA President Pat Ononibaku remarked, “We are grateful to our sponsors for entrusting us to put on an important and meaningful Juneteenth program centering the power of community, conversations, joy and the arts. We dedicate this Juneteenth to the late oral historian Dr. Demetria Shabazz who grew up in Galveston, TX. Establishing community-wide Juneteenth celebrations in Amherst and keeping it going was among her passion projects when she and her family settled in Amherst 20 years ago.”

Donations for Hadley Black fire survivors are welcome and will be collected at the event. Additionally, Juneteenth t-shirts will be for sale to support BBAAA youth-engaged programming.

Sponsors include: Amherst Cultural Council, Mass Humanities, Massachusetts Women of Color Coalition, Greenfield Northampton Cooperative Bank, Greenfield Savings Bank and UMassFiveCollege Federal Credit Union.

Dr. Amilcar Shabazz is a professor in the WEB DuBois Department of Afro-American Studies at UMass Amherst. He is the former president of the National Council for Black Studies and is a leading voice in local and national reparations work. He is a co-author for a newly released book In Defiance: 20 Abolitionists You Were Never Taught in School. He is the founder of Sankofa Gumbo and is an officer with BBAAA.

BBAAA was founded 10 years ago by a small group of black entrepreneurs to increase visibility, promote resilience and facilitate connections to capital, investments and growth. BBAAA is a recognized 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a growing membership.

Co-founded by the late Dr. Demetria Shabazz, Sankofa Gumbo, Inc. is an Amherst, MA based 501(c)3 non-profit dedicated to celebrating, educating, and preserving the stories, foodways and cultural traditions of African-descendant people both locally and globally.