FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 4, 2026

City of Kingston and Partners to Commemorate Black Fourth of July on July 7, 2026

Music, Performances, and Readings at Old Dutch Church

KINGSTON, NY – Mayor Steven T. Noble is pleased to announce that the City of Kingston, with Old Dutch Church, Harambee, and the Pine Street African Burial Ground, will host 250 Years of America’s Voices: Black Fourth of July Commemoration on July 7, 2026, at Old Dutch Church from 7:00pm to 9:00pm.

The Black Fourth of July Commemoration will be a community gathering celebrating Black heritage, independence, and resilience through live music, historical education, and poetry. The event will feature a musical performance by Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Society, and readings from Old Dutch Church’s Pastor Liz Estes, Pine Street African Burial Ground Steward Tyrone Wilson, Former Poet Laureate Kate Hymes, Poets Antonya Barnes and LotuZ, and a special performance by the Redwing Blackbird Theater Puppets.

Mayor Steve Noble said, “This event aims to work toward righting a historical wrong, which requires diverse perspectives and inclusive storytelling. This event, in partnership with Old Dutch Church, Harambee Kingston and the Pine Street African Burial Ground, begins to address past injustices through a wide spectrum of voices, ideas, and collaboration. Kingston’s 2026 Black Fourth of July honors African American history and rich cultural roots, promotes empowerment, and celebrates our community coalition.”

Tyrone Wilson, CEO/Steward of the Pine Street African Burial Ground said, “Sadly, ‘freedom’ remains inaccessible for many Black and brown people, including immigrants, in this country. This injustice pervades our history, from the displacement and persecution of Indigenous people, to slavery, to Reconstruction Era laws that effectively continued to enslave Black people, to mass incarceration today. This nation’s founding fathers deprived others of the rights they bestowed on themselves. This community event, a coming together of all people in the Harambee tradition, reaffirms the words used in the Declaration of Independence, that all people are created equal and are entitled to unalienable rights.”

Kitt Potter, Director of Arts and Cultural Affairs said, “For this inaugural event, this is a day of sober reflection on the unfulfilled promises of liberty and ongoing racial injustice. We do this through music, poetry, spoken word, recitation of excerpts from Frederick Douglass’ What to the Slave is Your Fourth of July and Juma himself, the grandson of one of the Galveston slaves we celebrate during Juneteenth, telling about his own encounters with racism and discrimination while performing with Jimi Hendrix and other black notables. Old Dutch Church, with its history rooted in slavery and then the turnaround as fighters during the Civil War to end slavery, considers Black Fourth of July one of the most important events ever to be held there. We will celebrate the triumphs we have experienced together, with people of all backgrounds fighting together for justice and understanding. While we have come a long way, we still have a long way to go to see justice for all beings in our great country.”

On July 15, 1776, the signing of the Declaration of Independence was front-page news in the New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury. The newspaper ran the text in full and reported the declaration had been read to the Continental Army’s New York regiment, led by Gen. George Washington. The paper also featured two freedom notices of a different sort. One offered a reward for a 21-year-old Black man named Prince, who had escaped his enslavers and was “supposed to have gone towards Rye, NY or entered the Army. The other featured two brothers, Nathanial and Jacob, who had escaped from separate enslavers near Long Island, New York. Black communities in America have historically used national holidays like the Fourth of July as an opportunity to demonstrate their citizenship, patriotism and civic organizations – to show they are fully part of the fabric of the United States.

Black Fourth of July is made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature with thanks to the Radio Kingston Community Tech Team.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, please visit https://kingston-ny.gov/250yearsofamericasvoices.