The Town of Rye celebrated Juneteenth Saturday with a day of service and spoken word.

The town hosted a commemoration at the Rye African American Cemetery, featuring history lessons and words from the descendants of the many people interred there.

Volunteers cleaned up the cemetery and treated the headstones to preserve them. Organizers say it was to pay tribute to the experiences of Black people in the area from the past two centuries.

Juneteenth marks the 1865 emancipation of the last group of enslaved people, who were in Texas, 2.5 years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.