For those who were unable to attend Pekin’s first-ever Juneteenth celebration at the Pekin Public Library that was co-sponsored earlier this month by the Pekin YWCA Coalition for Equality along with the library, below is a link to the program presented by Jared Olar, the library’s local history specialist, telling the stories of four Pekin men — Pvt. William Henry Costley, Cpl. William Henry Ashby, Sgt. Marshall Ashby, and Cpl. Nathan Ashby — who served in the U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War and were eyewitnesses of the first Juneteenth in 1865. (Besides Pekin’s four Juneteenth eyewitnesses, a fifth Tazewell County volunteer for the Colored Troops, Thomas Marcellus Tumbleson of Elm Grove Township, was also present at the first Juneteenth.)
Before the Juneteenth program, Jared Olar was interviewed by WCBU Peoria Public Radio News Director Tim Shelley about the same subject. Quotes from that interview are included in the following WCBU news report at their website. Twenty-minutes of the interview aired on WCBU during the local news half-hour on Friday at 6 p.m. (the eve of Juneteenth) in the middle of the “All Things Considered” broadcast. Audio of the entire 45-minute interview is linked on the WCBU website immediately below this article:
