PRINCESS ANNE, MD - The 5th annual Juneteenth celebration in Princess Anne kicked off at noon on Thursday with a peace walk through the town.
People of all ages walked to commemorate 160 years since Union soldiers reached Galveston, Texas and some 250,000 enslaved people learned of their freedom two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
Organizer Tina Harris read aloud the names of the four known lynching victims in Somerset County between 1894 and 1933 - Issac Kemp, William Andrews, James Reed and George Armwood.
Around 20 local vendors lined Somerset Avenue with booths.
"Every year, we feel as though we are going bigger and better," Assistant Secretary of the Somerset Chapter of the NAACP Shelley Johnson said. "The unity that we have today ... it's just showing the growth of the town."
Lynnell Fletcher-Pugh walked alongside many young adults and children who braved the heat to participate in Thursday's peace walk.
"We want more young people to know what this day is and how did it come about?" Fletcher-Pugh said. "This peace walk is to let people know our strength."
Johnson spoke to the significance of holding the peace walk on Somerset Avenue in a community as tight-knit as Princess Anne.
"I remember stories from my grandmother where once upon a time, coming right here on Somerset Avenue, where we're celebrating Juneteenth, that we wasn't even allowed on the other side of the sidewalk," Johnson said. "So just to be able to have a peace walk come through Somerset Avenue is history in itself."
Thursday's celebration lasted from noon to 4 PM there in Princess Anne.