BOZEMAN — On Friday, many African-American communities all around the nation will be celebrating “Juneteenth” on June 19th.
Juneteenth honors the day the last enslaved African Americans were emancipated.
And in celebration, the Extreme History Project, a nonprofit organization right here in Bozeman, will be hosting free walking tours of African-American neighborhoods that were once in Bozeman and the history behind it, as well as other minority communities.
“So, we’ve been doing historic walking tours in Bozeman for a while now, and we think it’s just a great way to get people on the ground where history happened and learn those stories and the learn the stories about Bozeman’s African American neighborhoods, Chinese neighborhoods, about the women who built Bozeman, and all those stories that we don’t often hear,” explained Crystal Alegria, with the Extreme History Project.
And according to Alegria, Bozeman's demographics varied greatly.
"Bozeman was a very diverse place in its beginnings. When it first was founded in 1864, you could walk down Bozeman Main Street and hear people talking in all sorts of languages and dialects,” she explained.
Space for the tours are very limited due to the current pandemic. But the nonprofit plans on adding more tours in the future. For more information, visit here or the organization's Facebook page.
