Viking Fusion and Berry’s Department of Communication wish you all a meaningful Juneteenth marking the day 155 years ago that federal orders read aloud in Galveston, Texas, by Union army general Gordon Granger, declared “absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property” for all Black Americans in the state. 

We join you in celebrating that moment and those that preceded it, including Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation two years earlier and the cessation of the Civil war two months earlier, for making possible the many Berry students, faculty, and staff of color.

In 1964, Marisue Harrison Brown, Evelyn Hamilton and Frank Twyman, Jr. became the first Black students at Berry, paving the way for countless change-makers to follow. Their legacy is celebrated today as we join the growing number of states, municipalities, institutions, and colleges nationwide commemorating this important date in American history. May the future prove more just and equitable.