Juneteenth Festival To Commemorate Desegregation Of Glen Echo Park

GLEN ECHO, MD — The Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts & Culture and Washington Revels are co-hosting an event at Glen Echo Park on Sunday, June 25 to honor the people who worked to desegregate the park in the early 1960s.

The celebration, called “Diverse Voices: Festival of Freedom,” will include a commemorative ceremony remembering the actions that led to the desegregation of the former Glen Echo Amusement Park. The event will also include a preview of a documentary about the desegregation efforts at the park.

At the end of the celebration, a concert will feature several local and internationally known artists, including Sweet Honey in the Rock.

After fighting to desegregate lunch counters in Virginia, many activists turned their attention to the segregated Glen Echo Amusement Park. In June 1960, a group of Black college students took a ride on the carousel at Maryland’s Glen Echo Park and refused to get off.

Five students were arrested on the first day of the protests against segregation at the park. The protests continued outside the park for weeks after the initial day of civil disobedience.

Glen Echo Park’s owners agreed to desegregate the park in March 1961 after Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy threatened to pull the federal government’s lease on the land where the amusement park ran a trolley.

The June 25 festival at Glen Echo Park, now part of the National Park Service, will run from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. The park is located at 7300 MacArthur Boulevard in Glen Echo. The festival will also include children’s activities

The festival will mark the end of a week of activities from June 17–25 called “Diverse Voices: A Juneteenth Celebration,” the Washington, D.C., area’s first regional Juneteenth festival, that will commemorate the end of slavery in the U.S. and honor the people who fought for civil rights.

The Washington Revels, founded in 1983, is a multi-generational performing arts community of professionals and nonprofessionals that presents traditional music, dance, storytelling, and drama in D.C., Maryland and Virginia.

The Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, a nonprofit organization, oversees the cultural activities at the park, including preserving the historic structures in the park.