2025 Shove-Off Day – Chesapeake Juneteenth Sponsoring Bus Trip To Historical Ceremony

By New Journal and Guide Staff

The Chesapeake Juneteenth Foundation is again offering bus transportation from Hampton Roads to the 2025 Shove Off Day ceremony in Hopewell on May 25. The event began in 2023, bringing widespread national attention for the first time to the role of Virginia in the storied history that surrounds Juneteenth.

The National Park Service and The National Juneteenth Observance Foundation (NJOF) are hosting the ceremony that includes a variety of activities.

“Shove Off Day is just one of the many stories that make up the legacy and the full glory of Emancipation and the effect on all that share this land and beyond,” noted a statement from the NJOF, which is headed by Steve Williams, and is located in Nevada. NJOF is the official foundation which advocated more than 25 years for the recognition of Juneteenth before the signing of the federal holiday legislation in 2021.

Included in the 2025 activities will be a Juneteenth Flag Raising Ceremony performed by US Colored Troops (USCT) reenactors; guest speakers sharing the USCT’s stories; and there will be Tours of City Point and Appomattox Plantation.  The commemoration will be held in the area adjacent to the Old City Point Waterfront Park at 1199 Pecan Avenue and free parking will be available there.

The bus trip from Hampton Roads is $50 per person. For more information and to secure a seat, call Ernest Lowery, Director of the Chesapeake Juneteenth Foundation at (757) 737-2180.

About Juneteenth

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Over the years, history has marked June 19th as the African-American Emancipation Day.

Its annual observance has spread across the United States and beyond. It became an official federal holiday in 2021 and is observed by most U.S. states.

Juneteenth dates from the arrival of U.S. military troops in Galveston, Texas in June 1865 where an official order was issued by General Gordon Granger on June 19th notifying and freeing the still Black enslaved population living there that the Civil War was over and they had been freed from bondage by the Union’s victory.

These troops were on assignment to the Texas /Mexico border to defend the United States from Emperor Maxmilian. They included the U.S. Colored Troops who had fought valiantly for the Union during the Civil War and on May 25, 1865, they had left by ship from City Point, Virginia, now known as Hopewell.

The Shove Off Day ceremony is presented to tell the important role of Virginia in the history of how Juneteenth came into being.

The observance is free and open to the public. Parking is free.

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