STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Hundreds of people lined Bay Street and filled Tappen Park in Stapleton on Friday to celebrate Juneteenth, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved African Americans in Texas were freed, more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
“This living history parade pays homage to our ancestors who paved the way for our freedom and civil liberties,” said Dorcas Meyers, founder of Roc-A-Natural Cultural Foundation, who collaborated with Teresa Parnell and the Friends Who Think Pink Breast Cancer Awareness Organization to organize Staten Island’s annual Juneteenth Freedom Parade & Festival.
“Due to the rich cultures of New York City, particularly in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens, which had already been celebrating Juneteenth, I wanted to develop a program that included an historical re-enactment featuring Staten Island residents,” Meyers continued. “My goal is to ‘edu-tain’ the diverse communities of Staten Island and connect them with our neighboring boroughs.”…