All are cordially invited to our annual Juneteenth events and tours from May 16 - June 19, 2025, when we remember the news of the abolition of slavery being announced to enslaved people in Texas on June 19, 1865, in Galveston.

Juneteenth Speaker 2025: Samuel Collins

  • Friday, May 16

Citywide Juneteenth Celebration at Emancipation Park 2025

  • Sunday, June 1

Juneteenth Historic House/UNESCO Tours 2025

  • Saturday, June 7

  • Saturday, June 14

  • Thursday, June 19

Juneteenth Tea Cake Tours will be held every Saturday up until Juneteenth and on June 19, Juneteenth at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 2:30 p.m. Tours include three (3) UNESCO designated historic houses that are Sites of Memory in the Fourth Ward that tell the stories of slavery to freedom. Tours include a teacake from Lucy Pearl’s Bakery and iced red punch. (Note: We will be closed on Monday, the federal holiday)

Visit Houston Signature Experience Black History Tours 2025

 
 
 

  • Saturday, June 14, 2025, 10 AM

We are also offering a Visit Houston Signature Experience Tour “From Plantation to Emancipation” with reenactments by actress Kijana Wiseman. Feel and hear the differences of enslavement and freedom through song, historical accounts, and family portrayals.

Our Juneteenth Initiatives

The Heritage Society offers Black History tours and offers Juneteenth activities. In 2021, our leadership team made additional efforts to educate Houston about life before emancipation, freedom after June 19, 1865, and the ongoing pursuit of equal rights. Below are our Juneteenth initiatives for showcasing Houston’s history better than ever.

  • To unveil the success stories of African American suffragists in Houston during 1920 through our suffrage exhibit

  • To highlight the journey of emancipation and other civil rights history through our exhibits 

  • To inform tourists and locals of the African American experience in Houston in our historical home tours being conducted during Juneteenth

  • To educate our board and leaders on original Juneteenth history in Galveston, TX on June 11, 2021

  • To collaborate with and showcase key organizations in the Fourth Ward, Freedmen's Town who are our neighbors. We now share the same City zone with Fourth Ward

  • To express Houston's history of the road to achieving equality through art, murals, poetry, and photography

  • To celebrate our new federal holiday with family Juneteenth traditions such as serving red punch and tea cakes

  • To serve on the Mayor’s Citywide Juneteenth committee 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024.

Federal Holiday Media & Press Coverage

TOUR OF THE YATES HOUSE - GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER OF JACK YATES AND THS BOARD MEMBER Martha Whiting-Goddard, Senator John Cornyn, GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER OF JACK YATES Jacqueline bostic. Also in picture: THS member, houston historian, & photograPher Priscilla T. Graham AND THS Executive Director aliSon Ayres bell. (PHOTO CREDIT: THS STAFF, JUNE 18, 2021.)

TOUR OF THE YATES HOUSE - GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER OF JACK YATES AND THS BOARD MEMBER Martha Whiting-Goddard, Senator John Cornyn, GREAT GRANDDAUGHTER OF JACK YATES Jacqueline bostic. Also in picture: THS member, houston historian, & photograPher Priscilla T. Graham AND THS Executive Director aliSon Ayres bell. (PHOTO CREDIT: THS STAFF, JUNE 18, 2021.)

Private Tour for Senator John Cornyn

On Friday, June 18, Senator John Cornyn held media interviews with KHOU, KTRK, and KPRC at the Jack Yates House and received a tour from Yates’ great granddaughters. Board member Martha Whiting Goddard and her sister Jacqueline Bostic showed Senator Cornyn the home where they lived once. Senator Cornyn had been a co-sponsor of the bill honoring Juneteenth since 2011 and selected the Yates House as a historic location to share more information about his support for America's new federal holiday.

THS member and Houston historian Priscilla T. Graham, who is a subject matter expert on Freedmen's Town, was also present to photograph this Fourth Ward historic opportunity and was on standby in case the media or Senator Cornyn had any history questions on June 18, 2021.

See Graham’s vivid photos of the event HERE. See Graham's website HERE.

(In Photo: Senator John Cornyn, Alison Ayres Bell, Priscilla T. Graham. Photo Credit, Sen. Cornyn’s Staff, June 18, 2021)

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