Juneteenth is an American celebration that commemorates the Hune 19, 1865! It is also called Freedom Day!
So let’s find out some more trivia and facts about this celebration!
- Juneteenth is also known as Juneteenth Independence Day or Freedom Day
- It is an American holiday that commemorates the June 19, 1865
- On this day was the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the U.S. state of Texas
- And more generally the emancipation of enslaved African Americans throughout the former Confederate States of America
- Texas was the most remote of the slave states
- And the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, was not enforced there until after the Confederacy collapsed
- The name of the observance is a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth”, the date of its celebration
- Juneteenth is recognized as a state holiday or special day of observance in 46 states
- Observance is primarily in local celebrations
- Traditions include public readings of the Emancipation Proclamation
- Singing traditional songs such as “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”
- And reading of works by noted African-American writers such as Ralph Ellison and Maya Angelou
- Celebrations include rodeos, street fairs, cookouts, family reunions, park parties, historical reenactments, or Miss Juneteenth contests
- The Mascogos, descendants of Black Seminoles, of Coahuila, Mexico also celebrate Juneteenth
- During the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862
- With an effective date of January 1, 1863
- It declared that all enslaved persons in the Confederate States of America in rebellion and not in Union hands were to be freed
- This excluded the five states known later as border states
- Which were the four “slave states” not in rebellion
- They were Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, and Missouri
- And those counties of Virginia soon to form the state of West Virginia
- And also the three zones under Union occupation: the state of Tennessee, lower Louisiana, and Southeast Virginia
- More isolated geographically, Texas was not a battleground
- And thus the people held there as slaves were not affected by the Emancipation Proclamation unless they escaped
- Planters and other slaveholders had migrated into Texas from eastern states to escape the fighting
- Many brought enslaved people with them
- Increasing by the thousands the enslaved population in the state at the end of the Civil War
- Although most enslaved people lived in rural areas, more than 1,000 resided in both Galveston and Houston by 1860
- With several hundred in other large towns
- By 1865, there were an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas
- The news of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender on April 9 reached Texas later in the month
- The Army of the Trans-Mississippi did not surrender until June 2
- On June 18, Union Army General Gordon Granger arrived at Galveston Island with 2,000 federal troops to occupy Texas on behalf of the federal government
- The following day, standing on the balcony of Galveston’s Ashton Villa, Granger read aloud the contents of “General Order No. 3”
- Announcing the total emancipation of those held as slaves
- Formerly enslaved people in Galveston rejoiced in the streets after the announcement
- Although in the years afterward many struggled to work through the changes against resistance of whites
- The following year, freedmen organized the first of what became the annual celebration of Juneteenth in Texas
- In some cities African-Americans were barred from using public parks because of state-sponsored segregation of facilities
- Across parts of Texas, freed people pooled their funds to purchase land to hold their celebrations
- Such as Houston’s Emancipation Park, Mexia’s Booker T. Washington Park, and Emancipation Park in Austin
- Although the date is sometimes referred to as the “traditional end of slavery in Texas” it was given legal status in a series of Texas Supreme Court decisions between 1868 and 1874
- In the early 20th century, economic and political forces led to a decline in Juneteenth celebrations
- From 1890 to 1908, Texas and all former Confederate states passed new constitutions or amendments that effectively disenfranchised black people
- Excluding them from the political process
- Democrat-dominated state legislatures passed Jim Crow laws imposing second-class status
- The Great Depression forced many black people off farms and into the cities to find work
- In these urban environments, African Americans had difficulty taking the day off to celebrate
- The Second Great Migration began during World War II
- When many black people migrated to the West Coast where skilled jobs in the defense industry were opening up
- From 1940 through 1970, in the second wave of the Great Migration, more than 5 million black people left Texas, Louisiana and other parts of the South for the North and West Coast
- As historian Isabel Wilkerson writes, “The people from Texas took Juneteenth Day to Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, and other places they went”
- By the 1950s and 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement focused the attention of African-American youth on the struggle for racial equality and the future
- But many linked these struggles to the historical struggles of their ancestors
- Following the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign to Washington, DC called by Rev. Ralph Abernathy
- Many attendees returned home and initiated Juneteenth celebrations in areas where the day was not previously celebrated
- Since the 1980s and 1990s, the holiday has been more widely celebrated among African-American communities
- In 1994 a group of community leaders gathered at Christian Unity Baptist Church in New Orleans, Louisiana to work for greater national celebration of Juneteenth
- Expatriates have celebrated it in cities abroad, such as Paris
- Some US military bases in other countries sponsor celebrations
- In addition to those of private groups
- Although the holiday is still mostly unknown outside African-American communities, it has gained mainstream awareness through depictions in entertainment media
- Such as episodes of TV series Atlanta (2016) and Black-ish (2017)
- The latter of which featured musical numbers about the holiday by Aloe Blacc, The Roots and Fonzworth Bentley
- Organizations such as the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation are seeking a Congressional designation of Juneteenth as a national day of observance
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