Professional opera singer Tshombe Selby will perform a selection of modern and traditional songs from the steps of the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum in his hometown of Manteo to commemorate Juneteenth National Independence Day.
“The Sounds of Freedom” outdoor concert is to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, June 19, and is expected to last about an hour.
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Limited seating will be offered starting at 5:30 p.m. Organizers expect a large crowd as the concert is being offered at no charge, so attendees are encouraged to bring their own lawn chair or a blanket.
Edward Gantt, a U.S. Colored Troops reenactor and retired U.S. Navy officer, is scheduled to speak during the evening program. Visitors with an interest in the history of the U.S. Colored Troops during the war can chat with Gantt earlier that day, 1:30-2:30 p.m. at the museum.
June 19 became a U.S. federal holiday in 2021 and is observed annually to commemorate the end of slavery after the Civil War in the United States.
The Pea Island Preservation Society is the nonprofit organization hosting the concert at the Cookhouse Museum that honors the life of Pea Island Lifesaving Station Keeper Richard Etheridge. Enslaved in his youth on Roanoke Island, Richard Etheridge joined the Union’s fight for freedom and served in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War before becoming the first Black American in the nation to command a U.S. Life-Saving Service station.
“Remembering Juneteenth on Roanoke Island is especially important considering its ties to the story of the enslaved and the fight for freedom,” the society’s Outreach and Education Director Joan Collins said in a press release.
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“Roanoke Island was the setting for an historic experiment during the Civil War. Following the island’s occupation by Union forces in 1862, it became a safe haven for those once enslaved throughout the region and prompted the establishment of a Freedmen’s Colony at the north end of the island,” she said, adding that many of the surfmen who served at Pea island are descendants of those who lived on the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island.
