LANCASTER, Pa. (WHTM) -- All across the Midstate, Juneteenth celebrations are underway, and this year, Lancaster County celebrates it as an official holiday. The county kicked the weekend off on Friday with the raising of a flag in Penn Square.
"If July 4 is about declaring our independence, Juneteenth is about actually working for it and making it real," said Ismail Smith-Wade-El, Lancaster City Council president.
The day commemorates the end of slavery, and the raising of the flag is just one of many ways the city and county plan to celebrate.
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"It's not only about the freedom of Blacks and Black liberation, but it's the freedom of all people," said Shayna Watson, religious affairs chair.
The Lancaster County Commissioners officially made Juneteenth a holiday in the county this year. For NAACP religious affairs chair Watson, it is long overdue.
"While Lancaster is still coming into honoring some of these events we are elated that it is happening now and it so well received by our community," Watson said.
Smith-Wade-El says, "Black people have been having our own celebrations regardless of government recognition for decades and even a century in a half."
While City Hall is open, county and state offices will be closed on Monday. For now, the message is clear, "It is a time to remember the story, especially as every community and culture have experienced some form of oppression and we all have a story in that spectrum and this is our story,"
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