Purcellville Plans Emancipation Celebration
Purcellville’s Emancipation Celebration is a multi-cultural festival where people of all ethnicities will celebrate Emancipation Day. The celebration will be a family oriented day full of history, reenactments, music, exhibits, motivational speeches gospel, lunch and fellowship. Enjoy the beautiful sound of Mt. Zion Methodist Church Choir as they sing traditional songs throughout the Celebration. Come and experience the moving reenactment story of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman by Mrs. Edith Ferrell. Also, new this year, the Round Table where the audience sits back and listens to the history first hand from local residents tell their story of what it was like growing up in Purcellville.
Exhibitors at the celebration include the Purcellville Preservation Association, the Carver Alumni Association, the Friends of Carver, and The Black History Committee – Friends of the Thomas Balch Library, the Douglass Alumni Association, Loudoun County NAACP, Lincoln Preservation Foundation, and more. There will also be vendors selling African American heritage items for sale.
The Emancipation Day Celebration is all about community pride, awareness and the preservation of the historic and cultural heritage of our African American community in Loudoun County, highlighting its Purcellville history. The Loudoun County Emancipation Association was organized in Hamilton, Virginia, in 1890. It was the first countywide African American controlled organization in Loudoun. It incorporated in 1910 and purchased ten and
one-half acres of land in Purcellville. They named their property Lincoln Park, but it immediately became known as “the Emancipation Grounds.” Each year on the Saturday closest to the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation the community gets together in celebration of this special and important event. The purpose is to honor the memory of the Loudoun County Emancipation Association.
The Purcellville Preservation Association will host a station where townspeople are invited to bring their historic photos to be scanned, adding to the PPA photo collection where future generations can enjoy the visual link to Purcellville’s past. For the most current program information, check for updates and program times at www.ppa-va.org and at www.visitloudoun.org, or contact program coordinator Carver Alumni Association President
Larry King at 540-338-5014 or Purcellville Preservation Secretary Cathy Darby at 703-727-3085
Directions: The Carver Community Center, located at 200 Willie Palmer Way, is located adjacent to the Loudoun County Emancipation Association Grounds.
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Posted by admin
on Sep 7 2010. Filed under Loudoun County.
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