On Monday June 17, 2024 Leesa Jones co-founder and Executive Director of the Washington Underground Railroad Museum in Washington, North Carolina spoke at Mt. Sinai Missionary Baptist Church in Fayetteville on behalf of the North Carolina History Center on the Civil War Emancipation and Reconstruction. Her presentation consisted of describing several different methods of communication between the enslaved and abolitionists who assisted them. Audience members even took part in the lecture, Items were displayed, interacted with, and songs were performed to demonstrate the various creative ways the enslaved embarked on journeys to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
This event marks the History Centers sixth commemoration of Juneteenth, a Federal Holiday observing the Emancipation of the enslaved during the Civil War, and the fifth in memory of the late Hari Jones.
Mr. Hari Jones was a distinguished African American historian specializing in the Black American experience in the Civil War. He was an assistant director and curator at the African American Freedom Foundation and Museum in Washington D.C. He was a close friend and advisor to the History Center.