MARSHALL — Organizers of Marshall’s Juneteenth celebration are planning to bring part of the festivities downtown this year. This week, members of the Marshall City Council approved a permit request from the Juneteenth planning committee to have a food truck event on North Third Street.

Organizers are planning to have a lunchtime event with food trucks on June 19, plus additional music and events at Justice Park in the evening.

“This year for Juneteenth, we wanted to keep some things the same from previous years, but we also wanted add new unique ways to celebrate the day,” said Addy Wolbaum, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion assistant for the city of Marshall. Planning committee members thought having a noon lunch event would be a good way to bring more people together for the festivities.

“We also thought it would be a perfect opportunity to showcase the new Third Street,” Wolbaum said. Last summer, the downtown block of Third Street was reconstructed to create more of a pedestrian area.

“We hope to have some form of entertainment or live music, but other than that, it will be a relaxed environment for people to come together over some delicious food,” Wolbaum said of the food truck event.

Additional Juneteenth events at the park were being planned for later in the day, to avoid midday sun and heat, Wolbaum said.

Juneteenth commemorates the day slavery ended in Galveston, Texas, in 1865. While the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, the news that enslaved people were free didn’t reach all areas of the U.S. until after the end of the Civil War.

Juneteenth became a federal holiday in 2021.