What: A festival with comedy, gospel music, food, and more / A dramatic story-telling event in honor of the day the last American slaves were freed +
When: Festival is Saturday, June 15 from 1 to 5 p.m. / Storytelling is Sunday, June 16 at 3 p.m.
Where: Storytelling atOcean City Library / Festival between 7th and 8th Streets
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Two Juneteenth Events come to Ocean City – the first is a festival event celebrating African American culture and freedom from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, June 15, between Seventh Street and Eighth Street on Haven Avenue. The celebration will include music, stand-up comedy, special guest speakers, gospel power hour, vendors, food trucks and fun family activities.
The next day, Ocean City Arts Center presents Karen “Queen Nur” Abdul-Malik in an early celebration and commemoration of Juneteenth, the day in 1865, that the news of the Emancipation Proclamation reached the slaves in Galveston, Texas, two and one-half years after its pronouncement. Join us to experience the storytelling magic of that moment on Sunday, June 16 at 3pm in the Chris Maloney Lecture Hall of the Ocean City Public Library, 1735 Simpson Avenue, Ocean City. It is free and open to the public.
The program begins with a story honoring ancestors and Queen Nur’s telling that story at Elmina Castle in Ghana. The journey continues in celebration of resilience and resistance through the “knowing” of the right to freedom that was expressed in the hushes and hollers as coded messages through songs, chants, field hollers. The performance renders a powerful story of Henry Box Brown and leads us to the story of the writing of the emancipation and the 2.5 year delay in its reaching Galveston Texas on June 19th of 1865. Storytelling is intertwined with African Drumming, including a log drum (the first drum made in Africa), slit gongs, and cajons.
Queen Nur is a nationally renowned storyteller, teaching artist and folklorist. Sharing her gift, she has performed in venues from the opening of the Smithsonian National African American Museum History and Culture to Equity Theater on Broadway, from the National Black Storytelling Festival to the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesboro. Traveling abroad Queen has presented for the U.S. Embassy in Cameroon and at PANAFEST in Ghana. She received her Masters in Arts in Cultural Sustainability from Goucher College, and a Certificate in Dispute Resolution from Harvard Law School.