Civic Season Kickoff: A Juneteenth Event feat. Historic Baseball Game, Stories and Emancipation Proclamation

Kickoff Civic Season and explore the Black experience in Iowa’s history!
June 10 • 9 a.m.-4 p.m.All activities included with General Admission

Gain a better understanding of the legacy and hope of emancipation and explore the Black experience in Iowa from early farmsteads through the fight for civil rights.

Presentations & Activities
9:15 a.m.— Welcome/Reading of Emancipation Proclamation
9:30 a.m.—Emancipation Day in Iowa, Leo Landis, state curator, State Historical Society of Iowa
10:30 a.m.—Black Iowa Pioneers, Ricki King, forensic historian and owner of Roots to Branches Genealogy
11:30 a.m.—Storytime and craft, Abena Sankofa Imhotep, author of “Omari’s Big Tree and the Mighty Djembe” and executive director of the Sankofa Literary and Empowerment Group
12:30 p.m.—Pie social with youth contest winners and Chellie’s Sugar Shack Bakery
1:30—Presentation on Buxton, a fully integrated mining town in southeast Iowa in the early 20th century, Rachelle Chase, author, speaker, and Des Moines Register columnist
2:15—Buxton panel discussion
3 p.m.—Baseball: Walnut Hill Bluestockings vs. Buxton Wonders

Exhibits
Black Innovation: 19th-Century African-American Inventors
Iowa Civil Rights
Story Station: Share your oral history!

The day will end with a Historic Baseball game played by 1876 rules.