Juneteenth Vendor Fair Planned for June 18 at Ivy Tech

Ivy Tech Community College Evansville will celebrate Juneteenth on June 18 with an indoor vendor fair, from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. in the Koch Student Center on the Main Campus, 3501 North First Avenue, Evansville.

The event is free and open to the public.

The event will feature music, art, and multiple other vendors with items for sale and information to share. Food trucks will be available in the courtyard on the south side of the main campus during the event, including Trappin Chick’n, Tri-State Snack Shop, and the Loaded Fry Shack. The event is sponsored by Student and Employee Diversity and the Office of Student Life at Ivy Tech.

History of the Juneteenth Holiday according to the National Museum of African American History & Culture: While the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on Jan. 1, 1863, and all enslaved people were declared legally free, not everyone in every Confederate territory was immediately free. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as “Juneteenth,” by the newly freed people in Texas.

All Ivy Tech locations will be closed with no classes held on Wednesday, June 19, in honor of the holiday.