Black Soldiers to Be Celebrated at African American Civil War Memorial on Juneteenth

June 19th to begin steps toward grand opening of new museum
The African American Civil War Memorial on U Street NW across from 1925 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington, DC. PHOTO: National Park Service
The African American Civil War Memorial on U Street NW across from 1925 Vermont Avenue NW in Washington, DC. PHOTO: National Park Service

The general public will be given a sneak preview of the construction renovation at the African American Civil War Museum on Juneteenth following an 11 am ceremony honoring Black soldiers who fought in the Civil War. PHOTO: Hazel Trice Edney/Trice Edney News Wire



Wall of honor surrounding the African American Civil War Memorial. Inscribed on the wall are the names of all 209,145 Black soldiers and Sailors who fought, 6,000 of which will be read aloud on Juneteenth this year at 11 am. PHOTO: National Park Service


Dr. Frank Smith, founder and executive director of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum, stands next to the U Street Memorial in Washington, DC where the Juneteenth celebration will take place under a big tent starting at 11 am on June 19th. The names of 6,000 of the more than 200,000 soldiers and sailors will be read that day in honor of those who traveled to Galveston, Texas to announce the end of American slavery to those people still enslaved. PHOTO: Hazel Trice Edney/Trice Edney News Wire


Black Soldiers to Be Celebrated at African American Civil War Memorial on Juneteenth

June 19th to begin steps toward grand opening 

of new museum

By Hazel Trice Edney


Juneteenth, the June 19th federal holiday that commemorates the end of America’s slavocracy and celebrates freedom for African-Americans, comes this year amidst diminishing respect for the contributions of enslaved people and their descendants.

But leading historians around the nation are intent on restoring and growing that respect. That includes by honoring those Black soldiers who not only fought for freedom, but who traveled to Galveston, Texas with General Gordon Granger to inform the more than 250,000 enslaved people there that their freedom had been won.

Dr. Frank Smith, founder and executive director of the African American Civil War Museum and Memorial, based in Washington, DC, this week announced a historic gathering at the Memorial located across the street from 1925 Vermont Avenue NW, where the museum is under renovation and reconstruction. That gathering, under a huge tent, will start at 11 am on June 19th, and will begin a 6-month long celebration – steps toward the grand opening of the new museum.

“We will celebrate by assuming a team of readers who are going to read the names of about 6,000 African-American soldiers of the United States Colored Troops who went to Galveston, Texas with General Granger on that fateful day in June to announce to the last holdouts that the Civil War was over, that the 13th amendment had passed, and that the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed,” Smith describes. “They stayed there for two years to ensure the newly freed people were truly freed and not re-enslaved to the same corn and sugar cane fields that they had been forced to work.”

Once the names of those heroic soldiers are read, the public will be given the first opportunity to take a “sneak peek” at the renovations across the street, set to open amidst a grand celebration on Veteran’s Day, Nov. 11. That grand opening had been set for July 18, the Anniversary of the Battle of Fort Wagner during which Black soldiers proved themselves to be valiant fighters, winning wide respect and attracting thousands more Black soldiers into the Union Army.

But the July 18 date had to be postponed after Congress cut federal funds from the District of Columbia budget; including money for construction on the museum project, which is costing about $45 million. The cut funds will be recovered in August in time to complete the construction for the Veteran’s Day grand opening celebration.

Just across the street from the museum, which is housed in the historic Grimke School building on Vermont Avenue North West, is the bronze memorial, a statue of three soldiers standing guard. The statue is surrounded by a wall with the carvings of 209,145 names of those who served among the United States Colored Troops.

Smith says between Juneteenth and Veterans Day, “We’re going to read aloud the names of all 209,145 Black soldiers. We’re going to render them unto the universe. We’re using the names they used on the battlefield.”

That museum and memorial – fixtures in the U Street community for the past 21 years – are about to undergo a $45 million expansion project that will accomplish the second purpose for which the museum was built.

The Juneteenth celebration of freedom across the nation will be followed by the July 18 celebration of the Battle of Fort Wagner, which will feature a film festival showing the movie, “Glory”, starring Denzel Washington, Smith says. Those two dates will represent the first two steps toward the grand opening. The next step will be on September 22, a commemoration of the Battle of Antietam. It was after that historically bloody battle that President Abraham Lincoln first issued the Emancipation Proclamation demanding that the seceded states return to the Union by January 1 when the Proclamation went into full effect.

“Every one of these will be a steppingstone to flinging the doors wide open on Nov. 11, 2025,” Smith said.

The opening comes six years after the groundbreaking for the new museum during which Smith explained his vision for honoring the Black soldiers of the civil war who literally fought themselves out of enslavement into freedom.

“You all know that we started this African American Civil War Museum for two purposes – one was to correct a great wrong in history, which pretty much ignored the contributions of African-American soldiers ending slavery and keeping America united under one flag,” Dr. Frank Smith, executive director and founder of the African American Civil War Museum, told a packed house in D.C.’s historic Shaw neighborhood on Oct. 17, 2019.

Smith continued the brief history lesson before the rapt audience: “When the Civil War started, African-Americans had no pathway to citizenship in the United States. We were defined in the Constitution as being chattel slaves. And every court decision from that point up to the Civil War reinforced our position and our status in society.

We don’t get a chance to fight for our freedom until Lincoln gets himself caught up in a war that he can’t win without doing something about slavery. And so, he ended up enlisting two hundred thousand Blacks in the Union Army. The nation paid no attention to these soldiers until we built a monument to them.”

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