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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date: May 24, 2021
Contact: Andrew Sporrer, Pr & Marketing Specialist, 804-217-1077, andrew.sporrer@dcr.virginia.gov

Pocahontas State Park announces Juneteenth celebration

(Editors: Follow this link to download an image. Photo caption: Group Camp 7, a once segregated portion of the park, as seen from across Camp 7 Lake off the Otter Lick Loop Trail.)

(CHESTERFIELD, Va.) —Pocahontas State Park will host special events in observance of Juneteenth Saturday, June 19, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.

June 19, or Juneteenth, commemorates the day when the last enslaved Americans received the news that they were free. Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed the enslaved January 1, 1863, it wasn’t until June 19, 1865, that the last of the enslaved were freed.

Featured programs include:

Black Girls Hike RVA will lead a guided educational hike to Group Camp 7, the once segregated portion of the park.
Master storyteller, Sheila Arnold, will give accounts of Oney Judge, the personal maidservant to First Lady Martha Washington, and of William Still, the prominent Conductor along the Pennsylvania Underground Railroad.

Guests can also explore the African-American history of the park at their own pace on a self-guided story walk and Civilian Conservation Corps Museum tour.

Food trucks, a shaved ice cart, vendors and community organizations will be stationed near the visitor center to round out the day. Visit http://vasp.fun/juneteenth to learn more.

Pocahontas State Park is 20 miles from Richmond and offers boating, picnicking, camping, cabins, more than 90 miles of trails, nature and history programs, and fishing at the park’s three lakes. For more information, visit www.virginiastateparks.gov/pocahontas.

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