Juneteenth is a holiday celebrated by African Americans throughout the United States on June 19th. Also known as Freedom Day or Emancipation Day, the holiday commemorates the ending of slavery in the United States. Specifically, Juneteenth marks the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas learned that they had been freed under President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. Union Major General Gordon Granger announced the contents of the proclamation in Galveston, Texas, informing the enslaved people who were present that slavery had been outlawed in the state. As time went on, the holiday also came to symbolize social and legal progress for the Black community. Juneteenth has been recognized as an official state holiday in most regions of the United States. In June 2021, Juneteenth was made an official federal holiday.--Tyler Biscontini
Celebrating Juneteenth is a way to honor those who have been enslaved, to have the population learn more about this period of time within the United States specifically, and to celebrate the achievements of African-Americans. The national holiday comes at a time of intensifying popular interest in the history of slavery, slave rebellion, emancipation, the Reconstruction era, and Jim Crow, as well as in the history and evolution of Juneteenth itself and its regional celebration over many years in a variety of African American communities beyond Texas. --Diane Patrick and Calvin Reid, Celebrating Juneteenth
In the wake of the nationwide protests against police brutality in 2020, the push for federal recognition of Juneteenth gained new momentum, and Congress quickly pushed through legislation in the summer of 2021.
In the House, the measure passed by a vote of 415 to 14, with all of the opposition coming from Republicans, some of whom argued that calling the new holiday Juneteenth Independence Day, echoing July 4, would create confusion and force Americans to choose a celebration of freedom based on their race.
On June 17, 2021, President Biden signed the bill into law, making Juneteenth the 11th holiday recognized by the federal government. At a White House ceremony, Mr. Biden singled out Opal Lee, an activist who at the age of 89 walked from her home in Fort Worth to Washington, D.C., and called her “a grandmother of the movement to make Juneteenth a federal holiday.”
The law went into effect immediately, and the first federal Juneteenth holiday was celebrated the next day. (The holiday was observed on June 18, as June 19 fell on a Saturday.) --Derrick Bryson Taylor, The New York Times
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On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." Because the Southern Confederacy viewed itself as an independent nation, the Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free all of the enslaved population because the Rebel governments would not enforce Lincoln’s proclamation. Texas became a stronghold of Confederate influence in the latter years of the Civil War as the slaveholding population 'refugeed' their slave property by migrating to Texas. Consequently, more than 50,000 enslaved individuals were relocated to Texas, effectively prolonging slavery in a region far from the Civil War's bloodshed, and out of the reach of freedom—the United States Army. Only after the Union army forced the surrender of Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith at Galveston on June 2, 1865, would the emancipation of slaves in Texas be addressed and freedom granted. On June 19, 250,000 enslaved people were freed. --American Battlefield Trust
From the American Battlefield Trust
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