Three days of activities were planned at the Noble “Thin Man” Watts Amphitheater, 322 S. Clara Ave. in DeLand, to educate and celebrate Emancipation Day, May 20, 1865, the day Florida officially recognized the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing African American enslaved people.
The African American Museum of the Arts and Everybody Is Somebody, Inc. hosted.
Photos by Eli Witek
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Victoria Ranger, Quimariya Harris and Niyana Coffy with the Pine Ridge High School Chorus perform at the Emancipation Day event May 21. The soon-to-be-seniors have just started performing together.

Members of the Buffalo Soldiers of Florida, Inc., re-enactors who commemorate African American regiments in the Civil War, speak about the Civil War, and emancipation in Florida to a crowd on May 21. From left are Trooper William Shorter, Trooper Richard Wilder, American Legion Orange Baker 187 Post Commander Willie Branch, and Dr. Timothy Campaign. Campaign, as Union Brigadier General Edward M. McCook, re-enacted the moment when McCook read the Emancipation Proclamation in Tallahassee, effectively freeing all enslaved people in Florida.

Mary J. Fears, a storyteller with Voices of Pride Re-enactors, portrays the life of an enslaved woman in the 1800s.

African American Museum of the Arts Director Mary Allen, Panya Mitchell and Devon Mitchell-Freeman, African American Museum of the Arts Board Chair and DeLand mayoral candidate Reggie Williams, DeLand City Commissioner Jessica Davis, Everybody Is Somebody CEO and Volusia Remembers Co-Chair Sharon Stafford, Mistress of Ceremony Sadie McConner, and Volusia Remembers Co-Chair Grady Ballenger.

Community leader and longtime educator Alzada Fowler speaks to attendees. “Things are changing so much in education,” Fowler said. “We have to have people to go out there, and volunteer, and make these events, so that we can tell our communities about our history.”