As a white woman raised in the south, I was never taught about the history of Juneteenth, the “oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States.” It wasn’t until my late-20s, during the first wave of the Black Lives Matter movement, that I learned about the holiday.
On June 19, 1865, the enslaved people of Galveston, Texas learned that the were free. This news came a full two months after the end of the Civil War, and two-and-a-half years after President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation (technically) freed all of the slaves in the states which had seceded from the Union. When Major General Gordon Granger arrived in Galveston, he delivered General Order Number 3, which began:
The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property, between former masters and slaves and the connection heretofore existing between them, becomes that between employer and hired labor.
In remembrance of this day, the freed slaves of Galveston established Juneteenth (“June” + “nineteenth”), which also became known as Freedom Day, Emancipation Day, and Black Independence Day. In 1872, a group of Black ministers and businessmen bought ten acres of land in the predominantly black Third Ward of Houston, TX, and created Emancipation Park to serve as the permanent home of the annual Juneteenth celebrations. In 1898, the Juneteenth organization of Mexia, TX, purchased Booker T. Washington Park to host their local event, which became one of the state’s most well-attended, with as many as 20,000 attendees.
For more than 150 years, Black Americans around the country have celebrated Juneteenth with parades, barbecues, concerts, family gatherings, and other festivities. In the early years, many former slaves and their descendants made annual pilgrimages back to Galveston on June 19th. The popularity of the holiday waned over the decades, but saw a resurgence in 1968 following the Poor People’s Campaign, and again in 1980 when Texas became the first state to make Juneteenth an official state holiday.
Over the years, 47 states and the District of Columbia have officially recognized Juneteenth as a state holiday or day of observance—all but Hawaii, North Dakota, and South Dakota. On June 15, 2020, Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee introduced a resolution—with 202 cosponsors—to recognize the historical significance of Juneteenth. After years of effort, Jackson Lee also plans to introduce a bill to make Juneteenth a federal holiday, believing that the momentum of the current racial justice protests has made the timing right.
“There needs to be a reckoning, an effort to unify. One thing about national holidays, they help educate people about what the story is. Juneteenth legislation is a call for freedom, but it also reinforces the history of African Americans. We’ve fought for this country. We’ve made great strides, but we’re still the victims of sharp disparities. Our neighborhoods reflect that. We’ve been denied the same opportunities for housing, access to healthcare and, in 2020, [during] COVID-19, all of the glaring disparities are shown. Because of that, I think this is a time that we may find people who are desirous to understand the history not necessarily only of African Americans, but the history of America.”
– Sheila Jackson Lee, Time Magazine
Juneteenth Celebrations and Actions in 2020
At SixNintenteen.com, the Movement for Black Lives is organizing actions for Black Lives across the nation on the Juneteenth weekend, June 19-21.
- Search the SixNineteen map here to find a weekend event near you.
- Volunteer to host a Juneteenth event here.
- Text DEFEND to 90975 to stay updated on how to take action on Juneteenth and beyond
Join the Poor People’s Campaign for a National Call for Moral Revival. Their digital justice gatherings are being held June 20 at 10am and 6pm (EST) and on June 21 at 6pm (EST). The broadcasts will be interpreted in Spanish and ASL and open captioned in English.
The NAACP is hosting a Juneteenth Black Family Reunion on Friday, June 19, 2020 from 4-6pm (EST). The YouTube live stream will “honor the lives we’ve lost this year, uplift our collective movement for civil rights, and remember the moments that make us proud to be Black.”
The Juneteenth Book Fest (@JuneteenthBkFst on Twitter; YouTube channel) “seeks to use this day of jubilation to boost and celebrate Black American stories and the people behind them.” The event on Friday, June 19 is being organized by author L. L. McKinney and Saraciea Fennell, a book publicist and founder of the Bronx Book Festival.
Sign the Change.org petition to make Juneteenth a National Holiday. Nearly 300,000 people have already signed!
Read More About Juneteenth
- History of Juneteenth (Juneteenth.com)
- So You Want to Learn About Juneteenth? (New York Times)
- Activists Are Pushing to Make Juneteenth a National Holiday. Here’s the History Behind Their Fight (Time Magazine)
- What Is Juneteenth? (Henry Louis Gates, Jr., PBS.org)