2026 Weeping Time Commemoration

Friday, February 27th - Tuesday, March 3rd

The Weeping Time Commemoration Committee and OCEANS (Organization to Commemorate Enslaved African Americans) cordially invites you to the 167th Anniversary of The Weeping Time, a commemoration to honor and remember the men, women and children who were sold against their will in Savannah, Georgia.

On March 2 and 3, 1859, the largest slave sale in recorded American history took place at the former Ten Broeck horse racecourse in West Savannah, Georgia when 429 men, women, boys and girls from the Butler plantations near Darien and St. Simons Island, Georgia, were transported to Savannah and sold. The sale took two days during which time families were separated and scattered throughout the American south; many never saw each other again.

During the entire course of the sale, it rained torrentially in Savannah, stopping only after the last enslaved person had been sold. African Americans call this traumatic event The Weeping Time because, they say, God must have been weeping.

The general public is cordially invited to participate in the in-person celebrations!