The streets of Lewiston were alive with celebration Wednesday as the community gathered to mark Juneteenth.

A block party featured a community parade, live performances and artwork.

The name of the celebration also summed up its theme: “The City That Carries Us: Pain, Streets, and Heartbeats.”

“We’re celebrating the diversity of this community,” said Joseph Jackson, co-executive director of  Maine Inside Out, a nonprofit that describes itself as a group that “creates theater for social change in schools, prisons and in the community.”

“Lewiston is one of the most diverse communities in our state and it’s wonderful to see the community come out in recognition of this national holiday,” Jackson said.

Juneteenth marks the day that slaves in Galveston, Texas, were told that the Civil War was over and they were free. The Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves in the Confederate states but could not be enforced during the war, had been issued two years before by President Lincoln.

“Juneteenth is not only a day to celebrate those who fought for freedom and our collective liberation, it is a day to confront our nation’s true history,” Rachel Talbot Ross, Maine’s first Black speaker of the house, said in a statement. “On Juneteenth, we must recognize the progress we’ve made and recommit ourselves to building a future where every person can live free from discrimination and oppression.”

Juneteenth National Independence Day became a national holiday in 2021.

That same year, it also became a state holiday in Maine, the whitest state in the nation. According to U.S. Census data, Maine has a population of 1.32 million, of which 1.2 million are white, compared to 25,752 who are Black. Of that number, a little more than 5,000 Black people live in Lewiston.

“Juneteenth in Lewiston is where everyone – regardless of race – will come and support each other,” said A. Cuba Jackson of the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for change in the Maine prison system.

The holiday was a chance to reflect on “the struggles that we’ve had, the love we’ve had, the pain we feel, and coming together to overcome that.”

“That’s what makes Juneteenth so amazing,” he said. “We live in a community that’s very diverse. … We all share a story in the mosaic of freedom in America.”