The National Museum of African American History will honor Opal Lee, the “grandmother of Juneteenth” in this year’s events.

Events for Juneteenth in Boston will take place from June 18-20, 2026. The flag raising ceremony on June 18th will commemorate “June 19, 1865, the day when enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, were finally informed of their freedom more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.” The city’s Juneteenth is a “celebration of freedom, remembrance, and the ongoing pursuit of equity and justice.” Other city events are described here.

Both locations of the Museum of African American History, Boston and Nantucket, will mark the holiday with a summer season of freedom as described here.

The Museum of Fine Arts offers a substantial array of programs as does the Institute for Contemporary Art: We Create the World.

This column provided a reflection by Alden Fossett in 2024.  Alden will be ordained to the diaconate in our diocese this week.

As soon as we have information on DioMass’s commemoration, we will post it.

–Mary Beth Clack, Mary Blocher, Cindy Coldren, Pat Krol, Liz Levin