Final Juneteenth events hosted by Jim’s Journey being held Friday and Saturday

HANNIBAL, Mo. — Jim’s Journey: The Huck Finn Freedom Center will host two final 2025 Juneteenth events, both of which promise attendees a unique and engaging experience.

Author Nancy Rawles will unveil the 20th anniversary edition of My Jim at 6 p.m. on Friday, June 27.  My Jim is a convincing sequel to the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, a novel of American slavery. Rawles will share a story of resilience from the perspective of an enslaved woman, wife and mother.

The second event,  planned for 2 p.m. on Saturday, June 28, will have two talented performers reading from My Jim. 

Joe Long, playing Jim, has an impressive background in theater as an actor, singer and orator, including lead roles in various Broadway productions at the Mexico Missouri Presser Arts Center. His work includes the Wizard of Oz, Dracula, and To Kill a Mockingbird.

Local storyteller, Angela Williams, will perform the part of Sadie. Williams is a master storyteller in the Missouri Folk Arts Program. She is the last apprentice of Dr. Gladys Coggswell, giving her the unique opportunity to watch and learn the art of traditional storytelling from one of the best. Williams has spent years telling family stories, sharing tradition, and cultivating relationships throughout the tri-state region. 

My Jim gives a glimpse into the life and world of Sadie, Jim’s wife and mother of their two children. 

Author, Nancy Rawles, writes: Written in the great literary tradition of novels like Sula, My Jim considers the historically important question What happened to those enslaved persons who didn’t escape? by investigating the fictional world of Sadie Watson, a formerly enslaved woman. In her old age, she narrates a tale pieced together from her life, born in slavery, as a means to help her granddaughter decide whether to marry her love and move away.

As Sadie tells her granddaughter her love story, she paints a beautiful and complex portrait of her Jim—a gifted seer, a man of wit and charisma. When faced with the prospect of being sold, Jim escapes down the Mississippi with a white boy named Huck Finn. Reviled as a witch, punished for Jim’s escape, and convinced he has died, Sadie must rely on her own will, the objects she has carried from her past, and her love for Jim to animate her life and see her through.

Ms. Rawles is an award-winning author of three novels. Love Like Gumbo won an American Book Award for its portrayal of a lesbian daughter’s struggle for independence from her warm but suffocating family. Crawfish Dreams tells the story of an elder coming to terms with the devastation of her community and the struggles of her offspring and was selected for the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. My Jim tells the story of the wife and children of Mark Twain’s famous slave character from the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. My Jim is the winner of the American Library Association’s Alex Award, which honors adult books that appeal to teen readers.