Isle of Wight and Surry counties have four days of festivities planned for Juneteenth, the June 19 holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the United States.

It marks the date in 1865 when African Americans in Galveston, Texas, learned the Civil War had ended and the Emancipation Proclamation had made them free two years earlier. Virginia is in its sixth year of recognizing the date as a state holiday.

The festivities kick off at 10:30 a.m. on June 19 in downtown Smithfield with storytelling by Martha Ann Fields at the Main Street Square stage outside the Smithfield Times office. Fields will return to the stage for another performance at noon.

At the 1750 Courthouse at 10:30 a.m. and noon, Harry Johnson will portray Charles Henry Gray, Smithfield Foods’ then-CEO Joseph Luter III’s legendary assistant and namesake of the Charles Henry Gray Ham, a Smithfield ham with a secret brown sugar seasoning mixture developed by Gray. Johnson will reprise his portrayal at 1:45 p.m. at the Main Street Square stage.

The Main Street Square stage will host a drumline performance at 11:15 a.m., followed by the Smithfield High School drama club at 11:30 a.m. and music by Smithfield High alumni Kristiana Jones and Brandon Askew at 11:45 a.m.

The Main Street Square stage will host spoken word poetry with Alex Best at 12:15 p.m., followed by the Turquoise School of Dance at 12:30 p.m.

The Isle of Wight County Historical Society will host “Four Paths to Freedom in the Early 1800s,” at Main Street Baptist Church, located at 517 Main St. at 1 p.m. This lecture by John Quarstein, an award-winning author, historian and director emeritus of the USS Monitor Center at the Mariners Museum. Quarstein will tell the true story of how four men of African descent took differing paths to find freedom in neighboring Southampton County during the first half of the 19th century.

The best known event, Nat Turner’s rebellion, took the violent approach. Turner, an enslaved preacher, in 1831 led a deadly revolt that killed around 100 people and led to stricter slave codes in Virginia.

Meanwhile, Anthony Gardiner was able to find passage to Liberia as part of the American Colonization Society and later became president of the West African nation founded to resettle freed Black people. John Brown, another man born into slavery in Southampton County, was sold away from his family into the Deep South and ran away via the Underground Railroad, later publishing a book once he reached safety in England. Dred Scott, the namesake of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision denying citizenship to African Americans, was born around 1799 in Southampton County and moved west with his enslavers, eventually suing for his freedom.

At 2 p.m., the Main Street Square stage will host Forte, a jazz band featuring Smithfield’s own James Ford.

The Schoolhouse Museum at 516 Main St., which is dedicated to the African American educational experience in the early to mid 20th century, will hold Juneteenth events throughout the day.

Smithfield’s festivities are the work of the Juneteenth Planning Committee in partnership with the Isle of Wight County NAACP, the Schoolhouse Museum, several Greek sororities, the Blackwater Regional Library, Smithfield Foods, Smithfield and Isle of Wight County Tourism, the 1750 Courthouse and the Bank of Southside Virginia.

On June 21, United To Empower, a nonprofit organization, will reprise its annual Juneteenth Festival in Surry County, this year held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the outdoor pavilion at 45 School St. This year’s festivities include a mental health awareness walk at 10 a.m., food, music, vendors, family recognitions, face painting and children’s activities.

Surry’s opening festivities will include “an opening libation giving honor to both the living and ancestors,” followed by remarks by historian Stephen Eric Harris, United to Empower said in a news release.

Music will be provided by Noteworthy, Little Gogo, Gospel Star Light’s Singers of Surry County, Freedom Steel International and DJs Peter Paul and EZ. The Jubilee “Kiddie City” will offer children’s activities throughout the day.

On June 22 at 2 p.m., the Isle of Wight County Historical Society will host Valerie Schmidt-Wilson, who will present a lecture in the boardroom at the Isle of Wight County Courthouse Complex at at 17140 Monument Circle on the 81 slaves emancipated in the 1802 will of Timothy Tynes and her growing database designed to help descendants of the Black Tynes family find their roots. As archivist and conservator of the Isle of Wight County Courthouse in 2012 when a digitization effort was underway, Schmidt-Wilson began the Isle of Wight County Records Project that repaired and organized old records. When the locally-held loose paper was conserved and archived, then-Clerk of Circuit Court Sharon Jones reclaimed thousands of original documents from the Library of Virginia, where they were held in a warehouse. Those formerly hidden papers are now nearly all conserved and available to the public.

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 10:55 a.m. on June 10 with an updated schedule of Smithfield events. A previous version had relied on an early draft of Smithfield’s event flier.