Leonard H. Monroe played on the last segregated basketball team at Lawrence Liberty Memorial High School. He also played on the first integrated team.

“We could play football and track, but we had to have separate basketball teams,” Monroe, 73, said about race relations between whites and blacks when he was a high school student in the late 1940s.

“Growing up in Lawrence we were used to certain things being segregated,” Monroe said. “I know I wondered why, but that’s just the way it was.”

In 1950 the high school integrated its basketball team and Monroe was one of its black players. He doesn’t remember the move causing any controversy.

Monroe will be one of a panel of speakers who will talk about his experiences as a black high school athlete in Lawrence during an oral history presentation on June 15 at Kansas University, in the Kansas Union’s Alderson Auditorium. The presentation will be part of a weeklong series of events during this year’s Juneteenth Celebration in Lawrence. Also speaking will be Alice Fowler, who will talk about the local African-American Oral History project.

Juneteenth events begin Sunday and continue through June 18.

Other events will include Underground Railroad tours, a three-on-three basketball tournament, teen dance and a family fun festival at Burcham Park, Second and Indiana streets.

This will be the second year for a Juneteenth celebration in Lawrence. Nearly 40 committee members have organized the event.

“Our first Juneteenth Celebration held last year was so successful, our committee members are excited to bring another week of enlightenment, fun and fellowship to our community,” said Donna Bell, who is co-chairing the Juneteenth committee with Janine Colter. “We are committed to raising awareness of our rich history, to increasing youths’ knowledge of the history that has shaped their lives and to promoting diversity and tolerance.”

Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. Juneteenth, or June 19, 1865, is considered the date when the last slaves in America were notified of their freedom. That took place in Texas, more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.

The celebration will begin Sunday with a prayer breakfast at 6:30 a.m. at the First Christian Church, 1000 Ky. On Tuesday, Lawrence residents’ thoughts about Juneteenth will be showcased in poster and essay form in a 2 p.m. contest at the Boys & Girls Club, 1520 Haskell Ave.

Bell thinks this year’s celebration will be bigger than last year’s.

“I think more people have heard about it now,” Bell said. “I think some the people who attended last year have been talking about it.”