Today, St. Johns County commemorated the Juneteenth holiday with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at Collier-Blocker-Puryear Park (10 N. Holmes Blvd., St. Augustine) for the relocated Canright House: A Civil Rights Landmark.
Juneteenth recognizes the day (June 19, 1865) when Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas, and announced that the Emancipation Proclamation had freed the more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state by executive decree.
Sarah Arnold, Chair and District 2 representative of the St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners, was the first guest speaker. She congratulated all involved on the successful move of the Canright House-a home where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was scheduled to stay in the 60s before it was vandalized by segregationists-from Butler Beach to West Augustine, a decision made during the Board’s regular Feb. 20 meeting.