Americans Mark National Celebration of Juneteenth and Slavery’s End with Much Media Focus
Lots of resources on its impact: past, present and future
The 19th of June — the day in 1865 when Union army general Gordon Granger read federal orders in the city of Galveston, Texas, proclaiming all slaves in Texas were free — became Juneteenth, a state holiday in Texas. It is also known as Emancipation Day, Black Independence Day, or Jubilee Day, and became a federal holiday in 2021.
In 2024, there were celebrations and observances in communities across the country. But there were also hostile reactions — a mass shooting that killed 15 in Oakland, CA; another mass shooting in Austin, TX; and murders and shootings near Juneteenth observances in Milwaukee, WS, and Norfolk, VA. Details.
While Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation officially ended slavery in the South in 1863, it was not obeyed in Confederate states. Not until the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified by the states in December 1865 was slavery officially abolished throughout the nation. In many parts of the rural South, what followed was sharecropping, Jim Crow segregation, the elimination of Black voting rights, or “slavery by another name,” which continued until about 1970 and still has a pungent legacy.
NBC News offered this history of Juneteenth.
On June 17th, 2021, President Joe Biden signed legislation declaring June 19th a national holiday after a bipartisan Congress supported an annual celebration of Juneteenth, representing the end of slavery upon the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865. At a White House celebration earlier in June, Biden described the “ghosts trying to take us back” to an era before African Americans achieved legal and political equality.
Opal Lee, 97, a retired teacher from Marshall, TX who is known as the grandmother of Juneteenth because she worked to get it recognized as a national holiday, on June 19, 2024 received keys to a new home built on the site of her childhood home that was burned to the ground by a mob.
Juneteenth.com has a national registry of supporting organizations, as well as round-ups of celebrations, descriptions of the Middle Passage, and stories of slavery’s survivors.
“The Joy of Juneteenth: America’s Long and Uneven March From Slavery to Freedom” is a special, interactive report by three reporters for The Washington Post. In the summer of 2020, “amid the racial-justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, millions of White Americans became aware of Juneteenth for the first time. Some companies announced they would give employees the day off on Juneteenth, and momentum grew to make it a national holiday.”
The original June 19th, 1865 was when “Union Army Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger stepped onto a balcony in Galveston, Tex. — two months after the Civil War had ended — and announced that more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were free.”
“The newly emancipated responded with cries of joy and prayers of gratitude — a celebration that became known as Juneteenth. Black Texans marked the day each year with parades and picnics, music, and fine clothes. The gatherings grew through the aborted promise of Reconstruction, through racial terror and Jim Crow, and through the Great Depression, with a major revival in the 1980s and 1990s.”
The report includes photos of celebrations from 1900, 1908, 1925, 1989, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2005, 2018, 2020, quotes from Frederick Douglass, a brief history of slavery in the U.S., and quotes from Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Annette Gordon-Reed and her new book, “On Juneteenth.”
The Joys and Struggles of Juneteenth. Historian Annette Gordon-Reed grew up celebrating Juneteenth with her family and community in Texas. While the holiday started in the Lone Star state in 1866, it has grown in scope and prominence with celebrations across the country. Listen to Post Reports.
On the PBS Newshour, she explored how Juneteenth and Texas history shaped her life. A transcript is included in the link.
Related articles include:
Historian Heather Cox Richardson explores Juneteenth’s historical context and direct line to policy debates in 2024. Audio version.
How Enslaved People Gained Their Freedom. “There was no one moment when freedom came to the enslaved in America. When President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, the clouds did not part, the sun did not shine beams of freedom, and the shackles of slavery locked for nearly 250 years did not magically fall away. The truth is so much more complicated. Read more.
A Moment of Indescribable Joy. Juneteenth has its roots in the long-awaited moment of emancipation in Texas, where more than 250,000 enslaved Black people received news on June 19, 1865 — more than two years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation — that they were free. Read more
Henrietta Wood sued her enslavers for reparations and won. Her descendants never knew.
Cries and Cheers in the Nation’s Capital When Enslaved Were Freed. “To commemorate April 16, the District of Columbia every year celebrates Emancipation Day, when the city’s enslaved men, women and children were freed — nearly eight months before Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. The District would become the only jurisdiction in the United States to compensate enslavers for freeing people.” Read more
The Crucial Ballots That Ended Slavery in Maryland. “The vote was a cliffhanger, and in the end, 375 absentee ballots cast by soldiers made the difference. Thus did the voters of Maryland narrowly adopt a new constitution in 1864 that, uniquely among border states still in the Union, freed tens of thousands of enslaved men, women and children.” Read more
Two Families, One Black, One White, Shared A Harrowing History. “Slavery unexpectedly connected the Kings and the Beckers. Both families have embraced the opportunity to learn about each other’s past with more clarity, despite layers of discomfort and awkwardness. “Having taught high school social studies and having spent my life in education,” John B. King Jr. said, “I thought about how illustrative this experience is of our need to do a better job of teaching in this country about the history of African Americans and the institution of slavery.” Read more
What Juneteenth Tells Us About the Value of Black Life in America.
The Struggle to Immortalize a Brutal Lynching in Sherman, Texas.