Introduction to Create a Flyer for a Juneteenth Celebration

In this lesson, you will learn about the American holiday Juneteenth, which is celebrated every year in the United States on June 19th.

To start, this video will explain the history of Juneteenth and why it is important.

In the following videos, you will do activities to help you learn more and imagine your own celebration.

On the eve of January 1, 1863, African Americans gathered for Watch Night services to await the news of the Emancipation Proclamation.

At midnight, the Proclamation declared that enslaved people were legally free.

But the Confederate States fighting the Union in the Civil War ignored this proclamation.

In fact, people remained enslaved in Texas even after the Civil War ended in May of 1865.

Imagine their relief when they were finally freed on June 19, 1865...two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation and a month after the Civil War had ended.

This day is celebrated every year in the United States as Juneteenth.

In this lesson, you will explore the topic of Juneteenth on Google Arts & Culture, a website that provides access to arts- and culture-related content from around the world.

Then, you will create a flyer to advertise your own Juneteenth celebration or promote one that’s already planned in your own community.

Today, many people still celebrate Juneteenth with church services and vigils and with activities like picnics, street fairs, family reunions, and historical reenactments.

You can celebrate Juneteenth in person or gather everyone virtually using an online meeting program.

Think about how you might plan to celebrate Juneteenth if you were in charge of the celebration.

Even if you’re completing this lesson in a month other than June, you can still imagine what your celebration will be like.

For your celebration, will you… Read something aloud, like a poem or speech?

Listen to certain music?

Cook certain foods?

Dance?

Play games or a sport?

Have a scavenger hunt?

Or ask people to wear certain clothes or costumes?

Because Juneteenth centers around the enslavement of African and African American people, you may find some of the events, stories, and images upsetting as you explore.

While Juneteenth is a celebratory holiday, it also gives people a chance to reflect on past events that can be painful.

You’ll use what you learned about Juneteenth to plan what your celebration might look like...

...And create a flyer to advertise it.

This lesson uses Google Docs and Google Drawings, but you could apply these skills and concepts in most other word processing and drawing applications.

As you complete this project in Google Docs and Google Drawings, you will… Create and type in a document, Make a bulleted list, Create and format a drawing, Add text to a drawing, And add images, colors, and other visual elements.

To work on this lesson, sign in to your Google account.

Open a new tab in your browser, and navigate to Google.com.

If you are not signed in, do so now.

If you do not have a Google account, pause the video and create one.

Then, create a new document to research Juneteenth and start planning your celebration.

Rename it.

Now, it’s your turn: Sign in to your Google account, And create a new document and rename it.