Join the Elegba Folklore Society for Juneteenth 2025, A Freedom Celebration

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) -- You can honor Juneteenth with storytelling, offerings and entertainment alongside the Elegba Folklore Society this weekend.

Juneteenth 2025, A Freedom Celebration will start at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, June 14, at the Manchester Dock, located at 1308 Brander Street in Richmond.

The celebration will begin with a Get Work Youth Summit, food, a Freedom Market, live entertainment and interactive conversations.

The schedule of events includes:

• 12:30 -- Get Woke Youth Summit
• 1:30 -- Performance by Teshia LaSane & the Live Experience
• 2:30 -- Interactive conversation with Janine Bell themed 'Comfort or Activism?'
• 3:00 -- Ceremony for our Collective Good with Baba Kọ́lá Abímbọ́lá
• 3:30 -- Elegba Folklore Society performers present African Dance, Music & the Oral Tradition

Attendees are asked to wear white, and can bring offerings including water, fruit and flowers.

Great 8 Events: Juneteenth with Elegba Folklore Society

The event will then transition at 4:30 p.m. to "A Tribute to the Ancestors, Along the Trail of Enslaved Africans." Attendees will walk to interpretive sites from the Manchester Dock to the Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground with historic narratives and music.

"There's so much about history, heritage, identity that has escaped us as African Americans by design," Janine Bell, president and artistic director of the Elegba Folklore Society, told 8News. "It's part of the way we got here. And so, in order to be whole, it's this — this is a restorative justice sort of program."

Buses will return attendees to their cars after the walk. Food, water and seating will be available on site.

Juneteenth 2025, A Freedom Celebration is free and open to the public.