TEXARKANA, Texas - The Scholars and the Sigmas hosted the sixth Annual Juneteenth Parade and Festival on Saturday at the Four States Fairgrounds and arena on Saturday.
The theme for the parade was a focus on resilient women while the festival celebrated history, freedom and keeping history alive for the Black community while embracing the future journey and honoring those that went before them said Eric Darden.
"A celebration of life, or our history, of our culture, where we come from and where we're going," said the Scholars President Chiquita Burks.
"Yes, it's a celebration of progress, the progress we've made through our struggles; we don't want our youth to forget how strong we were, how strong we are, how strong we're going to be in the future," said Darden."We just want to keep celebrating all of our successes; and this is a big success for us, celebrating freedom in general, that's what we're doing."
June 19th, 1865 the last of the enslaved Blacks were released in Galveston, Texas, over two years after the emancipation proclamation was signed to end slavery in the U.S.
Burks said she estimated between 3,000 to 4,000 people attended the event
All proceeds will go to The Scholars program.