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On Saturday, the city of LaGrange hosted its first Juneteenth Parade in celebration of the holiday dedicated to the official day slavery ended in the United States.

Already a federal holiday, the city recently added Juneteenth as an official paid holiday for city employees. The holiday commemorates the emancipation of enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, marking the end of slavery in the United States. The day serves as a symbol of freedom and is celebrated by many Americans.

LaGrange Councilman Leon Childs was among the group of residents who helped organize the parade through Downtown LaGrange. Councilman Childs said resident Montez Cameron suggested the parade, so he and others started working to make it happen. He said city staff were particularly helpful.

“I want to give a huge thank you to the City of LaGrange, which recognizes Juneteenth as a paid holiday now,” Childs said. “We thought that it would be good to do a huge celebration.”

A committee was formed to organize the event called Unity in the Community, consisting of himself, along with Cameron, Zsa Zsa Heard, Jimmy McCamey, Yvonne Pittman, Monica Hill and LaShieka Ferrell.

“We started reaching out to the churches. We started reaching out to organizations. We started reaching out to the community just to celebrate this holiday, but the underlying message and vision was to celebrate the holiday with the parade and to bring unity in the community, because there’s so much divisive stuff that’s going on,” Childs said.

Corey and April Ross served as co-grand marshals for the parade.

The parade was a big success for its first year, with nearly 200 entries and organizations participating. With other stuff going on over the weekend, it didn’t draw massive crowds like the Christmas parade, but it still has room to grow. Childs said they plan on having it return as an annual event.

“Unity is what it’s all about, to bring us all together and just be about peace,” Childs said.