Published by New Jersey Stage
originally published: 06/12/2026
Photo by Stockton University(ATLANTIC CITY, NJ) -- Stockton University will commemorate the annual Juneteenth holiday with a series of events in Atlantic City and on its Galloway campus.
The festivities will begin on Tuesday, June 16 with the screening of a new documentary on the life of for Stockton President Vera King Farris. The documentary, which was created by students and alumni, is titled “Leading Change: Dr. Vera King Farris, A Story of Vision, Resilience, and a Commitment to Equity that Transformed a University.”
The free screening will take place at 6:00pm in the Campus Center Theatre and will be followed by a panel discussion with the filmmakers. As the longest-serving president of Stockton, Farris believed deeply in access, opportunity and the power of higher education to change lives.
Stockton’s Atlantic City campus will host a Freedom Day celebration from noon to 4:00pm on Wednesday, June 17 at the Kesselman Hall Garden Quad. The event will feature a keynote speech by Elaine Hawkes, the co-founder of WEHA Gospel 88.7 and 100.3 FM, which is based in Pleasantville. The event is free and food will be served.
The Noyes Arts Garage of Stockton University will partner with the African American Heritage Museum of Southern New Jersey for its second annual Juneteenth Celebration on Friday, June 19 and Saturday, June 20. Both days will feature free programming from noon to 5:00pm.
Friday’s activities will be led by Brian Jackson, Stockton’s vice president for Community Engagement, and will include speeches by Yolanda Melville, the director of the New Jersey Division of Civil Rights, Kaleem Shabazz, the president of the Atlantic City chapter of the NAACP, and storyteller and motivational speaker Michelle Washington Wilson.
Saturday’s keynote speaker is the Rev. David Mallory of the First Baptist Church of Richland. That will be followed by museum founder Ralph Hunter Sr. paying tribute to local businesswoman and philanthropist Rita Mack and former Press of Atlantic City entertainment reporter Vincent Jackson. Also, descendants of individuals involved in the Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court case will speak.
Both days will feature food, vendors and immersive exhibits charting the history of Juneteenth and slavery.
“We celebrate Juneteenth knowing that, in Fanny Lou Hamer's words, 'Nobody's free until everybody's free,'” Hunter said. “Even though emancipation came late to the former enslaved of Galveston, Texas, on June 19, 1865, it finally echoed from shore to shore that slavery had been abolished throughout this nation.”
The Noyes Arts Garage is located at 2200 Fairmount Ave., in Atlantic City. For more information, call 609-626-3805.
Stockton University is ranked among the top public universities in the nation. Our students can choose to live and learn on the 1,600-acre wooded main campus in the Pinelands National Reserve in South Jersey and at our coastal residential campus just steps from the beach and Boardwalk in Atlantic City. The university offers more than 160 undergraduate and graduate programs.
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