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NATCHEZ — People of the Miss-Lou celebrated freedom and unity at the third-annual Miss-Lou Juneteenth Heritage and Soul festival on Friday and Saturday while wearing masks and socially distancing themselves from one another due to COVID-19.

Juneteenth, which is June 19, is an annual freedom day celebration that takes place on the anniversary of the day in 1865 when Union General Gordon Granger read aloud federal orders in Galveston, Texas, stating that all enslaved people in the state were free.

This year’s festival was co-organized by Miss-Lou Heritage Group and Tours Director, Jeremy Houston and Bryan McKnight.