(Radio Iowa) – The African American Museum of Iowa is hosting its annual Juneteenth Festival in Cedar Rapids on Saturday. Jacqueline Hunter, the museum’s executive director, says it’s an event designed around remembrance and celebration. “It’s a chance for us to recognize the importance of the holiday, but what does that look like for our community and our state moving forward,” Hunter says. “It’s a deeply personal and powerful reminder of this unfinished struggle for freedom.” Juneteenth is an annual, nationwide celebration of the freeing of the last slaves in the United States on June 19th, 1865, when news of the Emancipation Proclamation at last reached Confederate Galveston, Texas. While that’s part of history, Hunter says current events keep related issues in the forefront.

“I think it’s most appropriate during this time as we are seeing things that play out again, not only locally but within our state and our country and our world,” Hunter says, “in terms of what does it look like for us to come together again behind shared interests, and things that make each of us have a good quality of life in the respective communities that we live in.” The festival will include live music and performances, food and merchandise vendors, a talent show, lawn games, and a homemade sweet potato pie contest. “Not that we don’t eat sweet potato pies everywhere, but it really does have some roots in the South and certainly with those who were enslaved, and just the magic of the sweet potato,” Hunter says. “So certainly something that if you’re down South, you’re probably far more likely to see it on the menu than maybe some other parts of the country, but we appreciate getting a good sweet potato pie anywhere we can.”

The facility will also host a screening of the documentary “Juneteenth: Faith & Freedom” next Thursday, on June 19th. “It really does focus on the connection of Galveston, Texas, to the overall Juneteenth event. It also features the woman that we would call the mother of Juneteenth, or the founder of the celebratory part of that experience in Galveston,” Hunter says. “It really takes you through the church, the period of enslavement, and what happened after emancipation.”

The museum’s Juneteenth Festival is Saturday at Cedar Rapids’ NewBo City Market from 11-to-5 PM.