Explore and Celebrate the Stories of Black Revolutionaries this Juneteenth at the Museum

Celebrate Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the legal abolition of slavery in the United States, with the Museum of the American Revolution on Thursday, June 19, 2025. Juneteenth, which was declared a state holiday in Pennsylvania in 2019, commemorates the day in 1865 when the abolition of slavery reached the deepest parts of the former Confederacy in Texas.

In our galleries and online, the Museum will delve into the lesser-known stories of Black men and women of the Revolutionary era such as Elizabeth Freeman, Phillis Wheatley, and Harry Washington, as well as Black soldiers who fought in the regiment of the 2nd Spartan Regiment of Militia from South Carolina. The Regiment’s flag, which is the most recently identified flag from the Revolutionary War, is on view now as part of our current special exhibition, Banners of Liberty: An Exhibition of Original Revolutionary War Flags.