Two events commemorating the Eighth of August — the date when residents of Hopkinsville and surrounding communities have traditionally celebrated the emancipation of their enslaved ancestors — are planned at Hopkinsville Brewing Co. and at the Pennyroyal Area Museum.
The first event is Taste of the Town, featuring several Black-owned food trucks, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 6, at the brewery on East Fifth Street.
Vansauwa’s Tacos is organizing the celebration for the second consecutive year. Owners Zirconia and Desaepa Vansauwa established the Taste of the Town in 2021 to highlight the growing number of Black food entrepreneurs in the area.
Also planned this year is the Eighth of August Emancipation Day celebration from 1 to 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 7, hosted by the Hopkinsville Human Rights Commission at the Pennyroyal Area Museum. It will include a tribute to African American history, plus food, music, crafts and games.
Many areas of the United States celebrate the emancipation of slaves on Juneteenth, a new federal holiday that traces its origin to June 19, 1865, when federal troops brought the news to African Americans in Texas that the war had ended two months earlier and that President Lincoln had emancipated them on Jan. 1, 1863.
However, in other parts of the country, including communities in Western Kentucky, emancipation is celebrated on Aug. 8, a date that some believe is when enslaved people in parts of Kentucky and Tennessee first heard they were free.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. Brown was a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era, where she worked for 30 years. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board past president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition. She serves on the Hopkinsville History Foundation's board.
