Plans already made for Leesburg’s Juneteenth celebration

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) - With the start of May on the horizon, and June not far behind that, preparations are already being made for the 2023 Juneteenth celebrations. WALB’s Jim Wallace sat down with the organizer of the Leesburg event for details about it and the history behind it.

What is the Juneteenth celebration?

“OK. Jim, right here. What Juneteenth is, it goes by many names. You know, we can call it Emancipation Day. We can call it the Freedom Day, or we can say is the country’s second Independence Day. So, Juneteenth is one of the most important anniversaries, I feel like, in our nation’s history. And let me just say how all of this started. It was June the 19th, 1865, when Major General Gordon Granger, he had fought for the Union and then. He led a force of all of these soldiers to Galveston and then. That was in Galveston, Texas, and so he wanted to deliver a very important message. And that was the message was the war was finally over. The Union had won and now it had the manpower to enforce the end of slavery so that, to me, is what Juneteenth was all about,” Trisha Batten, Leesburg’s Juneteenth event organizer, said.

Well, tell me about the celebration that you’re planning and how you want other people to help you get this going.

“OK. We are our celebration. We’re planning this huge parade that we’re planning for people to come to just spend the day with us waving to our onlookers and shouting out and giving candy and to get vendors to sit up and barbecue. And just like a good fellowship. In order to participate with us, we would like for you to send donations because my ultimate goal is, and I’m the CEO of Recovering Restoration House, which is our potential shelter to battle domestic violence and abused women. So in order to do that, we need people to donate to us. And they can do that by Cash App. They can do it by Zelle or Venmo, or they can bill it to our address and that is recovering restoration house. And that’s going to be PO Box 353, Leesburg, GA 31763. And you can do any amount that you would like to do because we surely would appreciate it,” Batten said.

And the Juneteenth celebration will be on June 19th in Leesburg?

“In Leesburg, and that’s going to kick off at 10:00 o’clock. We’re starting and lining up at 1 Trojan Way and that’s at the Lee County High School and Leesburg, Georgia,” Batten said.

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