LAS VEGAS (FOX5) —Juneteenth celebrations are underway across the Las Vegas Valley, with Henderson’s annual festival beginning Friday at Water Street Plaza.
The free celebration features live music, local vendors, and food. Seating is limited, and guests are encouraged to bring their own chairs and blankets.
Juneteenth marks June 19, 1865, when Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, and declared enslaved people free — more than two years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
MORE ON FOX5: North Las Vegas to host Juneteenth flag raising at City Hall
Las Vegas event Saturday
“Black History is a part of American History,” said Councilwoman Shondra Summers Armstrong, representing the 5th Ward for the City of Las Vegas. “Come out and learn, come see your neighbors.”
The city of Las Vegas is preparing for its 25th annual event set to kick off Saturday afternoon at Symphony Park and the Smith Center.
“I thought that it would be amazing to have it at our premier cultural venue in the city of Las Vegas. The Smith Center, as well as Symphony Park, both in Ward 5,” Armstrong said.
Las Vegas’s Juneteenth celebration will showcase a free outdoor marketplace, DJ, food trucks and live performances. Inside the Smith Center, a ticketed event will host several R&B artists with proceeds benefiting the Rainbow Dreams Educational Foundation, a nonprofit that provides underserved youth with educational programming.
“Freedom is about education. Freedom is about opportunity. And by providing those equitable educational opportunities through our scholarship program, through our charter school on the historic west side, we hope that people take away just a little bit of the legacy that we are leaving here,” said Jay Haywood of the Rainbow Dreams Educational Foundation.
Valley-wide recognition
Juneteenth celebrations have been taking place across the valley all month and will continue through the weekend.
The city of Henderson raised the Juneteenth flag outside City Hall earlier this month, joining with community partners to prepare for the upcoming holiday.
“Especially in this climate, we take the opportunity to come together as citizens. Not us versus them, but one people, under one flag, under one nation. And remember that the Emancipation Proclamation granted all of us freedom. And we need to honor that, and we need to keep the legacy alive,” said Rev. Judyann Young of Buffalo Soldiers MC Las Vegas Post.
On Thursday, Sarah Collins Rudolph, known as the “Fifth Little Girl” and the sole survivor of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing, was the guest of honor at the Public Education Foundation’s “Black Girl Magic” Juneteenth Jubilee Luncheon.
Earlier this week, the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign was lit in red, black and green to honor the holiday’s legacy and the resilience of the Black community.
“We should be telling these stories about how all cultures weave into the fabric of this country, how we are the people who make up the fabric of the red, white and blue,” Armstrong said.
Copyright 2026 KVVU. All rights reserved.
