JUNETEENTH

While for many years, Juneteenth, also known as “Emancipation Day”, “Jubilee Day”, “Freedom Day”, and “Juneteenth Independence Day”, has been celebrated by African-Americans, effective June 17, 2021, President Joe Biden established Juneteenth as an official national holiday.

When the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863 by President Abraham Lincoln, all slaves were not actually freed. The proclamation only applied to places under Confederate control and not to slave-holding border states or rebel areas already under Union control. However, as Northern troops advanced into the Confederate South, many enslaved people fled behind Union lines, while slavery continued in states like Texas, with many enslavers from outside the Lone Star State moving there, as they viewed it as a safe haven for slavery.

Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed, however, the troops’ arrival came a full 2.5 years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Although Confederate General Robert E. Lee had surrendered at Appomattox Court House 2 months earlier in Virginia, slavery had remained relatively unaffected in Texas, until U.S. General Gordon Granger stood on Texas soil and read General Orders No. 3: “The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free.” General Granger’s arrival in Galveston signaled freedom for Texas’ 250,000 enslaved people.  

Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African-American holiday. Although emancipation didn’t happen overnight for everyone - in some cases, enslavers withheld the information until after harvest season - celebrations broke out among newly freed Black people, and Juneteenth was born. That December, slavery in America was formally abolished with the adoption of the 13th Amendment, which states: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”