AS the United States marks only the second federally recognized Juneteenth, Black Americans living overseas have embraced the holiday as a day of reflection and an opportunity to educate people in their host countries on Black history.
President Joe Biden moved quickly last year to federally recognize the day Black Americans have been celebrating since the last enslaved people were told they were free in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation.
In Liberia, Saqar Ahhah Ahershu, 45, from Jersey City, N.J., is organizing the country’s first “Journey Home Festival.”
“Because this is part of that hidden African American history that still hasn’t been completely unpacked,” he said in Monrovia.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest independent republic, was founded by freed slaves repatriated to West Africa from the United States in 1822, exactly 200 years ago this year. This weekend’s event will include a
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