Juneteenth events are planned this weekend

A commemoration of the end of slavery in the South is coming early to Salt Lake City this weekend, with a Savor Juneteenth festival and a black history tour.

R&B legend Booker T. Jones tops Saturday's performance lineup at 9 p.m. during the two-day festival at the Gallivan Center. On Sunday, blues masters Canned Heat will take the stage at 6 p.m. The festival starts at 11 a.m. both days. The admission charge is $1 before 5 p.m. and $5 after 5 p.m.

The event includes gospel singers, African-American hair-care seminars, three-on-three basketball and a lecture on black history in Utah.

In a separate event Saturday, the Utah Chapter of the Afro-American Historical and Genealogical Society will offer a "Black History Bus Tour of Salt Lake City."

The Rev. France Davis and Ron Coleman, associate professor of history at the University of Utah, will narrate the tour, which includes stops at the Buffalo Soldiers exhibit at Fort Douglas Museum, Trinity A.M.E. Church, Salt Lake City Cemetery, and This Is the Place Heritage Park.

The bus tour, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., leaves from Calvary Baptist Church, 1090 S. State. The tour costs $8 for AAHGS members and $10 for nonmembers and includes a box lunch. People interested in attending should RSVP by calling Gloria Wilson, 801-560-1397.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, when Union soldiers informed slaves in Galveston, Texas, that they were freed — some two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had ordered the freedom of slaves in Confederate states.