SJM Celebration of Freedom
Social Justice Matters (SJM), will celebrate our 9th annual Juneteenth celebration on June 13th. (Rain date: June 20th ) This celebration is set to be a day filled with family activities, entertainment, and good food. We anticipate 500 people will attend this year’s celebration.
This year we celebrate the 160th anniversary of the first Juneteenth Celebration. This year’s theme is “FREEDOM FORWARD - Building the Next Chapter Together”
The venue, Shady Rest Golf and Country Club, has a rich history and heritage and has been added to the NJ Black Heritage Trail. You can find out more about the legacy of Shady Rest at the preserveshadyrest.org website.
FREEDOM FORWARD: Building the Next Chapter Together”
This year’s theme draws on 2026 being the 250th anniversary of the founding of the USA and the unfulfilled promise as it relates specifically to Black Americans that was written in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal… that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” We consider the questions, “What will our country look like in another 250 years? How can we move forward together to create a more “perfect union” where the tenets expressed in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago are finally realized?” As we move forward with planning this year’s celebration, we want to drive home the idea that although the ancestors of today’s Black Americans were not recognized as human beings or as Americans during the times in which they lived, they WERE and WILL BE recognized as AMERICANS today. They are the embodiment of what it means to be American because of their resilience, revolutionary ideals, perseverance, and loyalty to the land upon which they worked and dwelled.