You're invited! This Juneteenth we also honor our ancestors who were denied matrimony. This is why we invite you to join us in celebrating Black Love and Black Excellence.

Derrick and Ramunda Young are the owners and founders of MahogayBooks in Washington, DC and this year is a huge milestone for them personally (and professionally - 15 years in biz). June 15 is their official 20th wedding anniversary and what better way to celebrate their love than with the community. MahoganyBooks the business (and their teen Mahogany) were both born out of their love and committment for each other. This year, you are invited to share in their love, intentionally during Juneteenth weekend. The ceremony will take place on the street outside of their National Harbor store and is formal, simple, yet extremely important and intentional to them. We'd love to have your presence to celebrate this milestone. Please bring a new or gently used children's book with you as we want to donate it to a local organization.

For the Young's marriage is profound and to be celebrated, especially when viewed through a historical lens. In the book, Bound by Wedlock written by Dr. Tera Hunter, she states:

"Kinship was essential to Black people and many free and enslaved people valued marriage as a way to signify commitment and love. Marriage was a way to codify intimate relationships. However, it was also an expression of humanity. It was a right that could confer other rights, and it was an instrument of social control. Marriage was not a failsafe institution with the ability to right racism’s wrongs. The couples who jumped brooms, rushed to Union camps, or searched for each other in the chaos of the postbellum South thought marriage was important, not perfect.

Many local jurisdictions throughout the South demanded high fees to discourage ex-slaves from marrying or simply refused to give them access to courts or licenses”. The federal government opened up legal marriage, a legal institution that many Americans valued as the bedrock of society, a requirement of manhood and womanhood, and the only appropriate foundation of a family unit, to include former slaves during and after the war. Those chafing at social change in the post-emancipation South saw Black marriages as a challenge to social order and racial hierarchy."

NOTE:
11am sharp. Rain or Shine | Please wear Red/Black/Green in honor of Juneteenth.

Some have already asked about gifts, we do not need anything, but if you'd like to do so anyway, giftcards to Target, Lowe's, restaurants, almost anywhere...are appreciated. Your presence is the gift.

Registration is not required but appreciated.

All are welcome.

Dress comfortably as we will be standing. Jeans, sneakers are all welcomed. We're celebrating love y'all!