The Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, in collaboration with the City of Bloomington and Ivy Tech Community College, presents the Annual Juneteenth Freedom Celebration in June of each year, featuring African and African American music, dance, food and crafts at Bryan Park, as well as a parade and a King and Queen Pageant. Long celebrated among African Americans, Juneteenth observes the end of slavery in the United States, said to have occurred two and a half years after the end of the Civil War, when word of the Confederate surrender finally reached the furthest corner of southern Texas. Juneteenth is a day set aside to honor the memory of those who endured slavery and those who progressed from slavery to freedom.