Prayer Breakfast 2020

It is the 19th of June, Juneteenth, and we would normally be observing this date with our annual Prayer Breakfast. Unfortunately this year the Corona Virus had other plans and we were forced to cancel our event.

The Emancipation Proclamation had been signed and formally freed the slaves on February 1st, 1863. After the Civil War had ended with the defeat of the Confederate States, enforcement of the proclamation was slow and inconsistent. Texas was the most remote of the slave states.

Juneteenth is recognized as an American holiday in 47 of the 50 states. It commemorates the date of June 19th, 1865, when Union General Gordon Granger read the federal orders in Galveston, Texas that all previously enslaved people in Texas were free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation had formally freed the slaves over two years earlier, the last of the slaves were finally free.

National Freedom Day has been celebrated on February 1st each year since 1941 with a visit to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, PA. The National Freedom Day Association also held a Prayer Breakfast prior and a luncheon thereafter.

In recent years we have moved our annual Prayer Breakfast from the Saturday prior to the Bell celebration to the weekend of Juneteenth to commemorate the freeing of the last of the slaves.

The Board and members of the National Freedom Association join our nation and the rest of the world in prayer and celebration of this day of freedom.