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'Juneteenth' Festival celebrated in Kent

Today, people gathered in Kent to celebrate the annual "Juneteenth" Festival and also the woman who helped launch this event.

Linda Sweezer, 64, was murdered in her home last October.

She was an active member of the Kent Black Action Commission or “KBAC."

Today fellow members are renaming the annual Juneteenth celebration at Morrill Meadows Park after Sweezer.

“She believed in us as people and she believed strongly that we can do anything we set our mind to do,” said KBAC Executive Director Gwen Allen-Carston.

Sweezer left behind her family which included a 4-month-old granddaughter she was in the process off adopting.

KBAC said the little girl is in foster care and the group wants to help do what it can to reunite her with Sweezer’s family in the Midwest.

“We can feel her here with us,” said KBAC member Richard Johnson. “That’s what we need right now and we hope she’s smiling in our efforts.”

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