Thursdays at PAMM: Juneteenth Celebration with Harden Project Duo
Thursday, 06/20/2024-, 06:00 pm-08:00 pm
Pérez Art Museum Miami
1103 Biscayne Blvd,
Miami, Florida, 33132
Website
Cost: Free with RSVP
Spend your Thursday at Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) for a celebration of Juneteenth with the sounds of the Harden Project Duo on the waterfront terrace and happy hour specials at Verde restaurant and bar.
About Harden Project Duo
The Harden Project consists of vocalist Ja’Nia Harden and keyboardist John Harden II. Their influences include Bobby McFerrin, Dinah Washington, Al Jarreau, Jimmy Smith, Robert Glasper, Soulive, and Bobby Floyd. The couple blends their influences and life experiences to create soulful groovy sometimes enchanting compositions. They are not afraid of being transparent and open while performing. The goal of the project is to bring soul-stirring, emotion-provoking, life-influenced music to the world and features fusion-based music of all genres, heavily influenced by jazz, social music, and soul.
The Historical Legacy of Juneteenth
On “Freedom’s Eve,” or the eve of January 1, 1863, the first Watch Night services took place. On that night, enslaved and free African Americans gathered in churches and private homes all across the country awaiting news that the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. At the stroke of midnight, prayers were answered as all enslaved people in the Confederate States were declared legally free. Union soldiers, many of whom were black, marched onto plantations and across cities in the South reading small copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and spreading the news of freedom in Confederate States. Only through the Thirteenth Amendment did emancipation end slavery throughout the United States. Not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas. Juneteenth marks our country’s second independence day. Although it has long been celebrated in the African American community, this monumental event remains largely unknown to most Americans. Sourced from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture.
